


Fools Rush In, Idiots Linger: A KiKasa Love Story

by Jmetropolis



Series: You're the One [8]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Future, Anger Management, Awkward Conversations, Awkward Flirting, Awkward Kissing, Awkward Romance, Awkward Sexual Situations, Coming Out, Declarations Of Love, Falling In Love, First Dates, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Future Fic, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Idiots in Love, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Making Out, Male Friendship, Misunderstandings, Post-Divorce, Rebuilding, Reunions, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Sharing a Bed, Siblings, Slow Romance, Swooning, Top - Freeform, Whining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-04-23 14:47:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 62,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4880893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jmetropolis/pseuds/Jmetropolis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An older, not much wiser, Ryōta reunites with his Senpai years after they played together at Kaijō.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What the heck. It was just a basketball game. It wasn’t going to alter the course of his life or anything.

Kise Ryōta docked his aircraft at the gate. He picked up the mic and fought the errant urge to serenade the cabin with his excellent singing voice. He’d already been written up once.  _Stupid, crankypants flight attendant._

Instead, he stuck to the usual script. After all, it had been a bumpy ride riddled with airpockets and his passengers were probably not in the mood for anything other than deplaning. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced. “Welcome to Narita International Airport. Local time is three fifteen and the temperature outside is 24 degrees Celsius. Thank you for flying JAL and please enjoy your stay-ssu.”

While he and his first officer waited in the flight deck for the passengers to disembark, he reached for the phone inside his uniform jacket and turned it on. He had several new texts from Takaocchi.

_Are you coming to the game tonight?_

_Please come. I’ve got a surprise for you._

_Please, pretty please._

_Oh alright. You’re going to make me say it._

_I invited your old captain. He said he’ll be there._

It was that last text that caught Ryōta’s attention. He and Takaocchi played in a recreational league. It was them and some of the guys they use to shoot hoops with back in high school.

Admittedly, their team wasn’t very good. They ranked dead last in the league and were on the verge of elimination. Not because there wasn’t a lot of talent – they had talent pouring out of every orifice – but because they suffered from a lack of practice, abysmal coordination, and a poor attendance record. Everyone had something else going on in their lives and so oftentimes they were lucky to even get five players on the court. Ryōta was one of the more flagrant offenders, missing most of the games because of his hectic travel schedule.

He had every intention of missing this game. He was going straight home this afternoon. He was tired. His circadian rhythms were all out of whack. He’d flown from Milan to Manila before finally making it home. He had the overwhelming inclination to draw a bath and pour himself a glass of bubbly (mineral water, not alcohol). Imbibing had been fine in his early twenties, but it was not good for aging and Ryōta was determined to keep his youthful good looks for as long as humanly possible. Maybe he might even treat himself to a carryout bowl of onion gratin soup. He knew a kiosk at the airport near the N'EX counter.

Still, he kept checking his phone. Looking at that last text message as if it would tell him something he wanted to know.

###

Kise Ryōta took his pre-assigned seat on the train headed into the city. He looked at his reflection on the window and still saw a _very_ handsome, yet weary man looking back at him.

His entire life he’d been told he was beautiful. When he was a baby, his mother could hardly walk down the block without being accosted by strangers cooing over the angelic, golden-haired child in her pram. When he was a very small child, his two older sisters used to dress him up in their old baby clothes and parade him around in front of their family home introducing him to passersby as their baby sister, “Ryō-chan.” It used to confuse the hell out of the neighbors and made an already crybaby Ryōta howl with indignation. To this day, if his sisters wanted to get a rise out of their easily excitable baby brother, they’d taunt him with the name Ryō-chan.  

His comeliness was both a blessing and a curse. He’d never wished to be average-looking -- _good heavens, no_ \-- but what people didn’t realize was that a lot of work went into maintaining his good looks. He exercised regularly, ate sensibly, and followed a strict beauty regimen. He even made his own, avocado-based wrinkle cream. As a rule of thumb, he drank plenty of water, but the recycled air in the cabin was dry, made his complexion look a bit peaky. He supposed he could use a bit more sun, but it was a delicate balance between Vitamin D and age spots.

Ryōta didn’t even know why he was fussing over his appearance on the train. He looked around. He didn’t know anyone here and he was going to go home now anyway. He’d apply an avocado mask to his face and bask in a bubble bath. That was exactly what he’d set out to do.

He picked up his phone again and scrolled through the text messages. He hadn’t gotten any new ones from Takaocchi. He told himself that was a good thing. They probably had enough players and wouldn’t have to forfeit the game. The other part of him wanted to know what was going on over there.  

He knew from Takaocchi, who was a shameless gossip, that Senpai had met a girl at uni. They had dated. He’d gotten her pregnant, then they’d gotten married. There had been a second child sometime later and then they’d gotten divorced. Apparently the divorce itself had only recently been finalized, although they had been separated for a couple of years before that.

Senpai now lived in Yokohama. Ryōta wasn’t sure if that meant he lived on his own or had moved back in with his parents. It had been fifteen years since he’d been there, but he could still picture the layout of that house.

And while none of that had anything to do with Ryōta, it still made him irrationally angry – or more truthfully, jealous – to hear that Senpai had started a life after they had parted ways. It was ridiculous. He knew this. It wasn’t like they had ever dated. He’d never confessed to Senpai and Senpai had never shown him any preferential treatment. And yet here he was feeling like a jilted ex-girlfriend upon hearing news of his . . . _not_ -lover.

Ryōta hadn’t seen him since the third-years retired from the team. He’d been too much of a coward to go to Senpai’s graduation ceremony, but the man had made a lasting impression on him. Ryōta still thought of him from time to time. And more so now that he’d gotten that text from Takaocchi.

He remained seated as the train stopped at Tokyo Station. The next station was Shinagawa. There he would exit and take the Yamanote line to Shibuya where it was just a four to seven minute walk (depending on which exit he took) to his well-appointed bachelor pad in a youthful, fashionable building that suited his tastes. He’d be home in no time. And really, that was all he’d wanted after a very long workday.

Kise Ryōta did get off at Shinagawa station, but he did not switch lines. He took the stairs to the platform on the opposite side and headed back to Tokyo Station. On the way there, he reapplied his waterproof eyeliner.  _Oh what the heck. It was just a basketball game. It wasn’t going to alter the course of his life or anything_.

###

Why the hell was he so nervous about seeing an old teammate? It wasn’t like anything had happened between him and Senpai. They’d played together on the same team. That was _it_. They hadn’t even done that for a very long time. One school year, that was all the time they’d spent together. So why the hell were his palms so sweaty?

As he walked into the high school gymnasium that had been rented out for this purpose, he realized far too late that he had nothing to wear. He had a carryon full of dirty laundry and nothing resembling gym clothes. He’d had no reason to bring the league-issued uniform with him, he hadn’t intended on showing up for this game.

He was about to head back, when someone yelled out his name.  
  
“Hey Ryōta!” Takaocchi called out to him as he ran towards his friend. “Glad you could make it,” the hawkeye said, patting him on the shoulder. “Well, what are you waiting for, go get changed. The game’s going to start soon.”

Ryōta explained his wardrobe predicament to Takaocchi. The hawkeye hustled to his car (or maybe it was Midorimacchi’s, Ryōta couldn't tell, his friends had matching sedans) rummaged through his trunk, and produced a crumpled pair of Midorimacchi’s swim shorts. The black swimsuit fit Ryōta perfectly, if a bit long at the knees. Ryōta wore a v-neck undershirt beneath his pilot’s uniform which made do in a pinch, but there was no helping his footwear situation. He’d have to play in black dress socks and a pair of lace up oxfords.  

For all the fussing he’d done on the train over his appearance, he looked like a walking fashion victim. But all those thoughts flew out of his head when he stepped onto the hardwood court of the high school gymnasium and caught sight of black, spiky hair and leg supporters.

Senpai was facing the court and so he had his back to Ryōta, but that didn’t stop the former model’s heart from racing like he’d just finished a sprint. One look at the back of Senpai’s head and Ryōta felt like he was a first year high-schooler all over again.

Kise walked up to the man. He was practicing the words he would say and how casually he’d deliver his greeting, but all that died on his lips when Yukio-senpai unexpectedly turned around and caught sight of him.

“Hey,” he said. “How’s it going?” And then he offered Ryōta a fist bump.

Their knuckles tapped lightly just as the ref blew the whistle. And then there was no time for chit chatter or catching up. There was a game to play.

The touch lingered on Ryōta’s skin even after they’d separated.

Kasamatsu-senpai looked older. There were bags under his eyes, like he wasn’t sleeping well, and he had salt and pepper hair around his temples. Still, there was that same spark, that fire in those determined blue eyes that sent Ryōta’s stomach into a freefall.

Those weren’t butterflies that had taken up residence there. They felt like birds or large bats. Even after all this time, Senpai could still make him feel that. And if there were now small creases around those steel-blue eyes, they served to provide emphasis and made them all the more alluring.

The game went about as well as expected. They’d lost miserably to a bunch of old geezers. Kise had been ineffective tap dancing all over the freshly polished wooden floor in dress shoes, trying to play three positions at once, trying to compensate for missing a power forward, having a lame center, and three point guards. Kasamatsu-senpai had lost his temper with the refs and almost got himself ejected from the game.

All that was to be expected. What Ryōta hadn’t anticipated was an invitation from Kasamatsu-senpai to meet up for coffee sometime. He’d said he worked in the city for an architecture firm. 

* * *

**AN:** So this is a KiKasa spin-off of a MidoTaka series. The game was referenced in this [chapter](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2725688/chapters/7593704) of Fixing a Hole. The MidoTaka works are all titled after songs from the Fab Four. I thought a title based on a [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqv5b0UjR4g) from the King would be in keeping with that tradition.  I'm super nervous about posting a KiKasa fic. I hope you'll give it a chance. 


	2. Fancy Meeting You Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryōta really wants to meet up with Senpai for coffee

Because the universe apparently hated him, Kise Ryōta had been playing phone tag with Kasamatsu-senpai.

The blond had done that thing he'd read about when he was a kid thumbing through his sisters' diaries. That thing where one was supposed to wait three whole days before calling a boy in order to avoid appearing “eager.” He wasn’t  _supposed_  to have read those diaries and had his sisters caught him, they would’ve made good on their threat to shave off all his pretty blond hair (and they did mean  _all_  of it) the way they were always threatening to do when a young Ryōta got into their make-up bag and dulled the tips of their eyeliners.

After letting Kasamatsu-senpai slip through his fingers the first time, Ryōta was determined to follow the rules,  _all_  the rules. Senpai was  _very_  important to Ryōta and he did  _not_  want to screw things up.

He was determined to follow the time-tested and glitter-penned advice of the resident experts to the letter. Because  _nobody_  had had more boyfriends than Kise’s older sisters. And sure they’d been called all sorts of not-so-pleasant names by some of the  _mean_  girls at their high school, but that was just because Ryōta’s sisters were beautiful and all those other girls were petty and jealous. But Kise was digressing.

Back to the matter at hand, when the third day rolled around, Ryōta’s phone rang with an unfamiliar number and he’d been  _soooo_  excited he’d forgotten all about his sisters’ purloined advice and picked up on the first ring and then proceeded to drop the phone on his foot.  _Oops. So much for not seeming desperate._

But because life was so horribly unfair to Kise Ryōta (horribly unfair,  _after_  handing him the gene pool lottery winnings, of course), not only was it  _not_  Senpai on the phone, but it was Kise's job asking him to fill in for a pilot who’d caught the chicken pox in Chechnya and couldn’t finish his route. Having already picked up the phone sounding chipper, Ryōta couldn’t even lie and say he too had come down with it.

The blond had had no choice but to fly from Narita to Tbilisi and then Taipei where he had an overnight stay before finally heading back. An entire week was wasted in this manner without Ryōta making any progress on cementing this promised coffeehouse meeting Senpai had alluded to after their basketball game.

By the time he’d finally flown home on Friday, Ryōta was so desperate to meet up with his Senpai he'd called him on the train ride into the city, to hell with the dirty looks from the other passengers. Senpai didn't answer the call and so Ryōta left a short, sensible voicemail.

"Hey. It's me. Just checking in. I thought maybe we could meet up for coffee sometime. Like you said. At the game. Uh . . . Talk to you soon-ssu."

The minute he’d hung up, Ryōta realized he'd left out something important from that message. He’d forgotten to leave his name. He thought that Senpai might not know who it was and then maybe Ryōta might never get a call back. And then his thoughts were filled with sadness, filled with images of his handsome self growing old, sitting beside his mobile waiting for the darn thing to ring.

Panicked, Ryōta dialed Yukio-senpai's number again. "Hey. It's me again. I mean it's me Ryōta," and because he and Senpai were not on a first name basis, he quickly added, "Kise Ryōta. I was the person who left you that message before. About meeting up for coffee. Call me. Bye."

Ryōta hung up the phone and then he realized he hadn't told Yukio that he was in town. He dialed the number again.

"Hey. It's Kise. I'm here. In Tokyo.  If you'd like to get some co-"

The call dropped when the trained passed through a tunnel, disrupting Ryōta’s reception.

Ryōta dialed back. "When I said ‘co’ earlier. I meant coffee. I don't want you think I meant something weird like, cocaine. Not that cocaine was the first thing to pop into my head or anything. I don’t do --”  

The call dropped again. "Damn it," Ryōta cursed, earning the ire of his fellow passengers. He called back, “I just want to clarify. I don’t do drugs.”

By the time he'd hit redial a sixth time, even Senpai's phone felt sorry for him because he got a cheery, preprogrammed robot voice announcing that the voice mailbox he was trying to reach was full.

###

Ryōta did not hear back from Senpai the rest of the weekend and by the time Monday morning rolled around, he was in anguished turmoil.

After a bit of internet stalking,  _er_  research, Ryōta was able to narrow down the list of architecture firms Senpai worked for to only a handful. But he couldn’t be sure which one it was without checking the front desk directories.   

He decided to take a little side trip to various lobbies in the city. Unfortunately for him, the universe really had it out for him and he hit the jackpot at the first building he visited.

“Kise? Is that you?” There was no sense in trying to hide. He wasn’t like Kurokocchi, who people naturally didn’t notice. Kise’s good looks ensured he stood out in  _every_  crowd.  

“Senpai,” Ryōta laughed nervously. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Kasamatsu-senpai was carrying a brief case and appeared to be coming from a meeting outside the building. Ryōta had been caught studying the directory on the wall near the elevators.

There was a goofy grin on Senpai’s face and despite Ryōta feeling like he had egg on his, he couldn’t help but be charmed by it.

“What are you doing here?” the man naturally wanted to know.

Kise Ryōta was not above lying to save face, especially when it came to his own beautiful visage. "My agent's new office is here," he said with no qualms about it.

“What a coincidence,” Yukio-senpai said. “This is where  _I_  work too,” he announced and Ryōta feigned surprise. “No kidding,” the blond laughed.

“Hey,” Senpai said, as if he just thought of something. “Is this your first time in the building?”

Ryōta nodded because there was only so much lying he could keep track of.

“Come here,” Yukio said and Ryōta blindly followed him. “Stand right here,” he told him and Ryōta stepped on the patch of sunlight between the elevator doors and a pair of escalators.

“Now look up,” the man instructed.

Ryōta did as he was told. He squinted. All he could see was a bright yellow light.

“Isn’t it amazing?” Yukio-senpai asked with an expectant smile.

“What is?” Ryōta said, still seeing sunspots.

“Don’t you see?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“That’s the atrium. It runs the entire height of the building. All 210.3 meters,” he announced proudly. “And  _I_  get to work here.”

Ryōta wasn’t sure why Senpai was so enthused about the big, vertical gap that ran all the way to that giant skylight at the top, but he did notice that the corners of Senpai’s eyes crinkled when he was talking about something he evidently liked. They didn’t used to do that and to the unkind eye, those crinkles might even look like the beginnings of crow’s feet, but Ryōta was drawn to them anyway. Now that he knew what caused them – that excitement on Senpai’s face -- he very much hoped to see them again.

“So you’ve got a meeting with your agent or something?”

“That’s it!” Ryōta said and then, realizing his tone was off, quickly corrected himself. “I mean,” he cleared his throat, “that’s it.”

"Oh yeah?" Yukio asked, giving his former teammate a warm smile that said he was happy to see him. "That's great. I'll ride up the elevator with you."

"Um, er." Ryōta was in a pickle of his own making. He  _could_  decline Yukio-senpai's invitation -- make up an excuse about forgetting something back at his apartment -- and miss out on what would surely be pleasant chit chatter with a bit of background music or he could ride up the elevator with the man and hope to possibly nail-down those plans to meet up for coffee this time.

Ryōta liked to fly by the seat of his tight-fitting pants. Instead of doing the cautious thing, he doubled down on his lie and got in the elevator with Senpai.

"What floor?" Yukio asked.

"Uh?" Ryōta didn't have an answer because of course he had no business here.

"Seventeen," he said, picking the first number that popped into his head.

"Hey. No kidding? That's where I'm headed."

"Seventy-one," Ryōta quickly amended.

Yukio raised a bushy eyebrow at his former teammate because of course the building did not have that many stories.

"Um," Ryōta laughed self-consciously. "I mean twenty-seven," he said smiling wryly.

When Senpai pushed the button, Ryōta quickly got over himself and got down to business. He only had 17 floors to seal the deal.

"About meeting up for coffee, Senpai. I called earlier --"

“You called me?”

"Yeah," Ryōta said surprised. “I left you messages.” He'd thought for sure Senpai had gotten all those messages he'd left for him. Maybe he'd had the wrong number and it turned out he hadn't made a fool of himself in front of Senpai after all. He smiled in relief.

"Oh," Yukio said. "I accidentally left my phone at work over the weekend. It's a new service provider so I haven't programmed my remote access password yet."

Ryōta’s smile tightened. His eyes went a bit buggy. Kasamatsu-senpai had not heard all those crazed messages he'd left. If he was going to get Senpai to commit to a coffee date it was  _now_ , because he wasn't going to agree to one after he'd heard the insanity Ryōta had left on his voicemail.

"Let's go for coffee." Ryōta blurted out and seconds later the doors of the elevator dinged open indicating their arrival on the seventeenth floor.

Yukio chuckled. "Alright," he said. "I like your enthusiasm," he added. "How about we meet in the lobby at seven. It's a bit late for coffee, but dinner perhaps?"

Ryōta was on cloud nine. Not only had he firmed up plans with Senpai, but they had been upgraded to dinner. Ryōta knew a fancy French bistro near his home. He'd have to dress up. Better yet, he'd go shopping for a whole new ensemble.

The elevator doors dinged open on the twenty-seventh. Ryōta looked out and saw the entire office appeared to be a paper supply company.  _Huh_.

Ryōta looked at his watch on his way down to the lobby and realized he had his day cut out for him. He had exactly eight hours before he had to be back here to meet Senpai for their date.

It wasn’t enough time to buy a new suit. Everyone knew a good suit couldn’t be bought off the rack and had to be tailored. Thankfully he had a closet full of made-to-order suits. Stylish ones, not like the equally expensive, but formal, stuffy ones Midorimacchi wore.

Still, there was no reason he couldn’t shop for a proper dress shirt with a point collar and French cuffs and a handmade silk tie from a reputable designer. Years of being in the fashion industry had made Ryōta an expert in menswear.  

There was also the subject of his left ear. He’d never gotten his right one pierced (the first prick had been painful enough, _thank you very much_ ), but there was something to be said for understated man jewelry.

He wasn’t sure if he’d go with a diamond stud earring. He still had that small gold hoop he used to sport at Kaijō. He was tempted to wear it tonight for old times’ sake. He wondered if Senpai would even recognize in. He decided to keep his options open in case he saw something he liked while at the shops.

He ran his fingers through his hair and quickly hit the speed dial on his cell. It was too soon for a trim (Ryōta was not one of those slobs who let their haircut grow out), but he could squeeze a deep conditioning treatment on his way home from the stores.  

He mentally checked off the inventory of beauty products he had in his bathroom cabinet in case he was running low on something and needed to stop at the cosmetics counter for a quick refill.

Yup. Ryōta sure had his day cutout for him. At this rate, he’d need all eight hours to get ready for his date with Senpai tonight. This had already turned out much better than he’d expected. He waved goodbye to the security guard as he exited Senpai’s building.

###

At exactly seven o’clock that evening, the brassy elevator doors in the lobby slid open and Kasamatsu-senpai made his appearance.

The easy smile he gave Ryōta upon meeting his eyes made the blond feel like he was in his first-year of high school all over again. Not that Senpai had done much smiling back then –- he’d been their bushy-browed, frowny faced, stern captain –- but the butterflies in Ryōta’s stomach upon seeing the man were a welcomed and familiar feeling. It was like his body was reacting from memory.

“Hey,” Yukio said, greeting Ryōta. “Don’t you look nice.”

Ryōta beamed. He was used to getting compliments. He’d gotten three in the lobby already in the short span of waiting for Senpai to come down from his office, but it was nice getting one from the person he liked. And there went those butterflies flapping their wings again. Ryōta knew he was in “like.” How could he not be, when he’d gotten this second shot at winning over Senpai. He wasn’t going to squander it. He was determined not to. He’d already put his name down for reservations at seven thirty.

Although they’d missed the six o’clock rush, there were still plenty of workers pouring out onto the sidewalk at this hour. “How come you’re all dressed up? Photo shoot or something?” Yukio–senpai asked as they walked down the front steps of the building and into the bustling streets of Shinjuku.   

Ryōta’s face sank. “Something like that,” he moped. He’d spent all day putting together this perfect outfit. He looked like he’d walked out of the pages of a magazine which was probably why Senpai thought he was modeling today. Had Senpai actually expected him to show up in the same clothes he’d worn this morning?

“Where are we going,” he finally asked when he noticed they’d left the forest of skyscrapers and entered a shabbier looking neighborhood.

“I know a great izakaya,” Yukio said, smiling proudly.

“Izakaya?” Ryōta asked as thoughts of a romantic candle lit first date at the little French, upscale bistro (conveniently steps from his apartment) began to fizzle, like fading fireworks into the night air.

“Yeah,” Yukio-senpai said glancing back at him. “C’mon,” he waved his hand at Ryōta who’d suddenly started to lag behind. “It’s under the railroad tracks. Couple more blocks. We’re almost there.”

“R-railroad tracks?” As far as Ryōta knew, rats and sewers were under railroad tracks not fine dining establishments.

Yukio-senpai stopped in front of a large, red paper lantern bearing the name of the eatery out front. Ryōta eyed the place suspiciously as he stooped under the low doorway to enter it. This was not what he’d had in mind when Senpai had suggested dinner tonight.

After leaving behind a pair of 60,000 yen Italian wingtip derbies in an unguarded shoe cubby, Ryōta hesitantly gazed at the menu which was, fittingly enough, scrawled on the wall. Just as he’d suspected, it was a dieter’s worst nightmare. Everything was breaded and fried.

He tried not to cringe as Kasamatsu-senpai placed his order of beer and bar food and then turned to Ryōta and asked him what he’d like eat.

When Ryōta responded, “I’ll have what you’re having,” he’d meant that he’d have a bite or two from Kasamatsu-senpai’s order. But Senpai misunderstood him and placed two orders of everything.

Ryōta gulped when plate after plate began arriving at their table. There was no way he was touching all that. He was already worried about clogging a pore being in such close proximity to the food fryer. The air was heavy with grease and steam coming out of the small cooking room.

Ryōta had good hair. He knew this. It was thick and glossy and deep conditioned and still  _very_   _blond_ – and  _no_  that had not been a gray hair he’d spotted in the bathroom mirror this morning – he just didn’t think sitting next to the kitchen was doing him any favors.

It was certainly ensuring that while he had every intention of declining a doggy bag, he would still be taking home this fast-food aroma securely embedded in the tight fibers of his wool crepe suit.

The first dish the waiter brought out was of course unagi. Ryōta  _hated_  unagi because unagi had once tried to kill him. The first and last time he’d eaten the dreaded sea snake, he’d gotten a bone lodged in his throat.

Ryōta eyed the dish wearily like it was a trained assassin while Senpai happily chomped it down, not a care in the world.   

“Well,” Senpai said to Ryōta who was just sitting there staring. “You made me order all this food, dig in.”

Ryōta started to politely decline and then he remembered the diaries saying something about men finding a healthy appetite attractive in a girl (his sisters had written it for themselves, but he supposed the same applied to any gender).

He put on a brave face skipped over the unagi – no sense risking another bone in his throat – and placed a few pieces of karaage on his mostly empty plate. He was going to have to run on his treadmill till the sun came up tomorrow morning.

Kasamatsu Yukio, proud papa that he was, pulled out his phone. "This is a new phone so I don't have a whole lot of pictures," he explained apologetically, but then he started scrolling through what seem like a lot of pictures to Ryōta (‘a lot of pictures’ for being about other people; Ryōta had a different standard for 'a lot of pictures' when it came to photographs of himself as the almost full storage in his own mobile could attest to. In that case, there was no such thing as too many).

The first photograph, coincidently also Senpai’s screensaver, was of two boys hugging a friendly-looking golden retriever.

Ryōta couldn’t help but smile at the tableau.

"That's Ghidorah,” Kasamatsu said, pointing to what was evidently the family dog. And then he chuckled. The sound was beautiful. “My kids watch a lot of scifi," he said, explaining the odd name.

Ryōta nodded along as Senpai swiped through the pictures giving a short blurb about each one. It became obvious as they scrolled through the roll, that the photos were all taken the same day. At a park Ryōta recognized as being near Senpai’s parents’ house in Yokohama. He briefly wondered where Senpai lived.

Kasamatsu-senpai was smiling fondly at his phone and there they were, those crinkles around his eyes again. Ryōta, who’d spent the better part of his life slathering on wrinkle creams and home-made, anti-aging avocado face masks, was captivated by them.

The oldest boy looked so much like Senpai, Ryōta could hardly keep his eyes off of him. If Ryōta had to guess, the boy was around twelve or thirteen.

 _How the hell was it possible that he was friends with (and wanted to date) someone whose kid was that old?_  He wondered. Ryōta spent some of his time with Midorimacchi and Takaocchi’s children, but they were babies. Sure, Ryōta had nieces and nephews that were in their teens, but his sisters were older than Senpai. _What the heck was this world coming to?_

"That's my baby," Yukio said smiling at a child sticking his tongue out in the photo.  _And oh my goodness was Senpai trying give Ryōta a heart attack with those crinkly blue eyes of his?_

The "baby" Ryōta learned was five years old and would be starting school next April.

Although the oldest was a carbon copy of Senpai, the little one looked nothing like his father. The boy’s eyes were blue, but they weren’t the same shade or shape as Senpai's. And he had reddish-brown hair that tended to curl at the ends. Ryōta wondered whether Senpai had married a redhead. He kept looking for pictures of the ex, but the only woman in the photos was Senpai’s mother, whom Ryōta remembered fondly from their time at Kaijō.  

As Kasamatsu-senpai continued talking about his boys, Ryōta rested his head in his hand, enjoying the fact that he had carte blanche to stare freely at the man under the guise of it being polite to maintain eye contact when engaged in conversation. He thought the restaurant’s muted lighting softened Senpai’s features or maybe that was just the way Yukio-senpai always looked when he talked about his children.

The good thing about not having seen each other in ages was that there was seemingly no shortage of topics to talk about. They talked about their old coach and their teammates. Senpai told Ryōta that Moriyama had started a futsal league and was still a confirmed bachelor. Ryōta told Senpai their old coach had retired from teaching and joined a bowling team.

Ryōta felt like he was going to melt. It was hot in the izakaya and so he’d taken off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and loosened his tie. But all that hadn’t made the feeling go away. The odd thing was, talking to Senpai and looking at all those pictures of Senpai’s family had stirred up a strange longing in his heart. Like he wanted to be a part of this, he wanted to be a part of Senpai’s life.

It was absurd. He knew that. He hadn’t seen Senpai in a decade and a half and clearly -- as those pictures had shown --  _a lot_  had happened between them, but so much of it still felt the same.

Counting dinner, this morning’s accidental meet-up in the lobby, and the basketball game the other night, they’d spent a grand total of about three hours together. And yet, Ryōta was already pledging some sort of fealty to his man. He felt even more ridiculous than his friends said he was.

He didn’t want this date to end, he didn’t want this night to end. Now that he knew where Senpai worked (a mere three stops on the Yamanote Line), he wanted to do this every night, he wanted to see him and listen to his stories and eat dinner with him, even the scary stuff like unagi.

“So what made you become an architect?” he asked, before taking a sip of his mineral water.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Kasamatsu-senpai said extending his hands out in a  _hey look at me_  gesture.

Ryōta, shook his head. “No,” he said and smiled because he couldn’t seem to stop smiling tonight.

“C’mon,” Kasamatsu said, unconsciously mirroring back a smile at Ryōta. “You’re going to make me said it huh?”

“What?” Ryōta was beaming so widely, he could hardly get the word out.

“Oh, alright,” Senpai said, shaking his head in mock defeat. He took a sip of his beer for fortitude. “I’ll spell it out for you. Geeky kid. Good at math. Good at drawing. No good at talking to girls.”

“How about you? Why’d you become a pilot?”

Now that the tables were turned, Ryōta suddenly blushed.

Kasamatsu-senpai must’ve noticed Ryōta’s hesitation, because he started laughing. “C’mon, Kise. Spit it out.”

“Well,” Ryōta said, running nervous fingers through his hair. “All kids like planes, right?”

Kasamatsu-senpai shook his head, “No,” he said, clearly not buying it. “That’s not it. Try again.”

Realizing he wasn’t going to get out of it, Ryōta lowered his head and spoke very quickly, “I-liked-the-uniforms.” _There._ He’d said it. That had been the attraction, at least initially.

And then the man sitting across from him laughed, a genuine, hearty laugh with crinkled eyes. “ _Idiot_ ,” he said fondly. 

* * *

  **AN1** : The building Kasamatsu works at is a real [building](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjuku_Sumitomo_Building) in Tokyo. Being an architecture buff and a Godzilla nerd (hence the dog's name), he's really excited about showing off the place. Ryōta, of course, doesn't get it, but there's something infectious about Senpai's enthusiasm and  _that_ , he totally gets.  

 **AN2:**  Thank you everyone for the kudos and comment. I was exciting to see interest in my little story. If you're so inclined, please let me know what you think. I also have a [tumblr](http://jmetmisc.tumblr.com/). Mostly knb stuff, if you'd like to chat or follow. 

 


	3. Not Bad, But It Needs More Salt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kasamatsu-senpai pays Ryōta a visit and introduces him to a giant lizard. If only that were a euphemism.

Ryōta and Kasamatsu-senpai lost track of time at the izakaya. They’d both been so engrossed in conversation that before either of them realized it, all the other customers had gone home and they had the place to themselves. In fact, the irritated owner huffed across the small room to turn off the red paper lantern outside in a not so subtle hint that they needed to settle up their tab and leave already.

Kasamatsu-senpai insisted on paying for their dinner and Ryōta allowed it because it gave him the excuse of asking the man out on a second date, a proper date. “I’m treating you next time, Senpai,” he said while they were putting their shoes back on. “I know a great little French restaurant,” Ryōta commented to Yukio as the tall blond stooped under the low doorway to avoid hitting his pretty noggin.

The leggy hostess at that great little French restaurant was probably furious with Ryōta right now because he’d made her squeeze him in at the last minute even though there were no open tables and the small bistro had been booked solid all month and then he’d ended up being a no-show. He didn’t even bother calling to let her know. But the blond was confident he’d be able to sweet talk her into getting him another table soon. After all, he’d taken her out for drinks once and it was obvious she was still interested in him.

As soon as Ryōta’s pert derrière was on the other side of the shoji, the owner turned the lock. He and Senpai had practically closed the place down and were the last patrons to leave the shabby establishment that night. Something about being shown the door made Senpai giggle hysterically. It was infectious and Ryōta quickly joined in.

They followed the railroad tracks back to the station and Senpai’s gait was slightly wobbly in a way that Ryōta found adorable. While Senpai wasn’t drunk, he had had a few beers during dinner and Ryōta could tell the man was happily buzzed. Yukio-san had all the tell-tale signs. He smiled easily and giggled a lot and his face was a pleasant shade of pink.

During their meal together, Ryōta was pleased to discover that Senpai was one of those people who acquired a lovely red flush on their faces when they drank alcohol. In fact, Senpai’s rosy hue continued onto his neck and disappeared beneath his collared shirt and loosened tie. Ryōta quietly wondered how far down on Senpai’s body the red flush went and suddenly it felt too warm for an autumn night.

When they made it safely through the turnstile, Senpai commented on how they’d been lucky that they hadn’t missed the last train yet given that it was almost midnight. Ryōta agreed with Senpai though truthfully he wouldn’t have minded _at all_ if Senpai had had to sleep over at Ryōta’s place on account of missing the train.

They rode together on the Yamanote Line and the pleasant conversation picked up where it had left off. While ordinarily it was considered extremely rude to talk out loud in a train car, thanks to the late hour there had hardly been any commuters on the platform and they had had the train car all to themselves after the first stop.

The train ride to Shibuya station was far too short for Ryōta’s liking and before he was ready to end the best date he’d had in recent memory, they were already there. Ryōta had had no choice but to stand up and quickly bid farewell to Kasamatsu-senpai. There was only a short window of time before the doors closed and the train departed again. Reluctantly, Ryōta exited the train car while Senpai remained onboard on his way to Shinagawa station where he’d switch lines and head south to Yokohama.

Ryōta didn’t get so much as a goodnight’s kiss even though they’d been alone. He was a little disappointed in that to be honest. It had been so long since he’d seen Senpai and Ryōta was naturally impulsive and very impatient when it came to getting what he wanted. And he very much wanted Yukio-senpai.

###

Kise came home to an empty apartment that seemed larger and lonelier than usual. Ryōta didn’t even have a dog to greet him at the door. Truthfully, his lifestyle wasn’t pet-friendly or long-term-relationship-friendly. He was hardly ever home, to be honest. Whenever he felt like the walls were closing in on him, he picked up and left. That was one of the perks of being an airline pilot. He could go to work and wake up on the other side of the planet the following morning -- a different place, a different bed, a different person to keep him company whenever he wanted.

Ryōta had moved into this apartment a few months after he’d graduated from Kaijō. He’d told his parents he wanted to live in the city because that was where all the modeling jobs were, but truthfully he’d seen his friends pair off together and start uni and he too wanted to get his life started.

Kurokocchi and Kagamicchi had been practically living together in Kagamicchi’s apartment since their Seirin days to the point where there was nothing left of Kurokocchi’s stuff to move in when they officially began living together after high school.

Around the same time, Ryōta witnessed something he’d never thought he’d see --  Midorimacchi asking Takaocchi to move in with him. Not that Ryōta had been hoping to move in with Midorimacchi. _Heavens no_ , the blond and the tsundere got along about as well as oil and water, but Ryōta was good friends with Takaocchi and, at the time, Ryōta had entertained thoughts of asking the hawkeye to take residence in his spare room. 

Ryōta moved into this two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom unit shortly thereafter in hopes he’d eventually find a roommate. Not because he needed help with the monthly payments (all his years of modeling had ensured he had a fatter bank account than your average high school graduate), but because he wanted the company.

Ryōta had moved into _this_ apartment because it was convenient -- a mere four to seven minute walk from the train station and in a hip, youthful neighborhood. It seemed to suit him perfectly. The fact that it was also near the pilot training school he eventually enrolled in was a happy coincidence.

The apartment was supposed to be his bachelor pad -- a place to stay for a short while, a couple of years at most, before he figured out what he wanted out of life and got settled elsewhere. In the end, he never did find that roommate. Ryōta never moved out of that two-bedroom apartment either. He grew comfortable living there and years later, when his landlord had decided to put the place on the market, Ryōta purchased it.

The college route hadn’t really been a realistic option for Ryōta anyway. His grades had always been abysmal, to put it kindly. And as he moved up, Ryōta’s academic performance diminished. Ryōta could say with absolute certainty that his first year at Kaijō had been his best. And it was due in no small part to Senpai who, from their very first meeting, put a cocky Kise in his place and proceeded to teach the wayward Miracle to respect his seniors and to value teamwork.

When Senpai left for college and didn’t so much as call or visit his high school teammates, Ryōta’s grades plummeted. He lost interest in school again. Not in basketball, never in basketball, but in classes in general and by the time his third year came around, Ryōta was looking at his looming graduation date in the same way he’d been dreading Senpai’s, with anxious uncertainty.

By the second month of third year, a nervous Coach had even had to assign Ryōta a personal tutor for every single one of his classes just so the man could keep his small forward academically eligible to play on the team.

It was no mystery how the arrangement had come about or where Coach had procured this assiduous tutor. The studious egghead was in Coach Takeuchi’s afternoon gym class and had only agreed to take on this daunting assignment because Coach had been none too subtle in pointing out that the guy's perfect grade point average and his chances of being class valedictorian the following year were in danger of being jeopardized if he didn’t secure top marks in physical education. The anemic bookworm was looking at a failing grade in gym class unless he agreed to some "extra credit" work in the form of tutoring the basketball team's idiot ace.  

And while the reluctant nerd helping the hapless beauty queen had been the premise of many a romantic comedy in Kise Ryōta's considerable DVD collection, the former model could personally attest that sparks did not fly between the two of them. Well, romantic sparks anyway. It turned out the nerdy second-year had a well-hidden, short-temper and it was no secret that the guy resented the hell out of Ryōta for being a jock and for receiving special treatment. Still, in the end the guy came through beating just enough book knowledge into Ryōta for him to continue playing on the court and ultimately sashaying down the aisle at graduation looking more gorgeous than anyone had the right to be in a hideous, Kaijō-blue polyester cap and gown.

It was dark in his apartment, but Ryōta didn’t bother turning on the light in the genkan as he kicked off his wingtip derbies and passed through the entryway. The shades were open on the large windows and the glow of the nearby buildings provided enough illumination for Ryōta to move about the apartment without the need for electricity. Truthfully, he didn’t even need the glimmer of the cityscape to mark his path. Ryōta could comfortably navigate this place in a blackout. He’d done so with a blindfold on a few occasions when he’d brought home some of his more risqué dates. 

He went to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of mineral water from the door of the fridge. He placed it against his forehead, letting it cool him, hoping the ward off the signs of his oncoming dark mood.

He’d had such a nice time with Senpai, he hadn’t expected to be hit with a wave of melancholy so soon after what he considered to be an enjoyable date. It wasn’t that he was unaccustomed to the feeling of doom and gloom. He just hadn’t expected it so soon.

Despite his near constant cheery projections, Ryōta’s true nature was more like a rollercoaster – blessed with exhilarating highs and plagued with plunging lows. There was a part of Ryōta who feared not being liked. He didn’t need to be loved by everyone. Truthfully, he didn’t care for most people. And to those people – the girl at the bistro, that egghead who used to tutor him in high school -- he could be cold and mean and manipulative and not feel a bit of remorse.

But to the people he respected, to the ones he cared enough to nickname _-cchi_ , those were the relationships that were fraught with anxiety, the ones he worried about constantly. He worried that if he was tired, that if he had an “off” day, that if he presented anything but his best side, that his friends wouldn’t like him anymore.    

He took another swig of his mineral water before setting the near empty glass bottle down on the carpeted floor of his bedroom. He didn’t dare set it on the dresser lest his cleaning lady yell at him for leaving rings on the furniture.

His suit smelled of fried batter -- his jacket, his tie, his dress shirt, even his v-neck undershirt. He sniffed every article of clothing as he shed them. As he made his way to the en suite master bathroom, he left behind a trail of designer garments on the floor instead of breadcrumbs (although there would probably be some of those too given how everything on his plate tonight had been covered in panko).

The bathroom’s long, rectangular countertop was covered in expensive beauty products between two sinks -- a reminder that though he lived alone, his home had been built for two. Ryōta pulled his hair away from his forehead using an elastic headband he kept on the counter for this purpose. He picked up a cotton swab and dabbed it in eye makeup remover before taking off his liner. The façade came off as he erased all traces of dirt and grime and makeup. After washing his face, he began his nightly routine of examining every pore under the powerful and unforgiving glare of his 20x magnifying lighted mirror -- a harsh reminder that he was thirty-one and not twenty-one anymore. 

Ryōta brushed his teeth, flossed, rinsed and then he headed to his closet in search of gym shorts, a t-shirt, socks and a comfortable, worn pair of cross-trainers. 

Even though he lived by himself, he still wore headphones. He plugged them into his music player and started blasting the familiar sounds of his favorite workout playlist. He pushed the start button and began a quick warm up on the treadmill facing the large floor-to-ceiling window in his corner-unit apartment.

There, Ryōta ran and ran and ran as if he were trying to escape his mood. He ran until he saw the sun peeking through the gaps in the skyscrapers, until he’d felt exhausted enough that he could possibly fall asleep. He quickly showered, washed his hair, coating it in his coconut-scented, salon-grade shampoo and deep conditioner.

He toweled off, not bothering to put anything on before he slipped between the sheets. Naked. Alone. Exhausted. Listless.

It was then that it hit him -- like a slap in the face -- the strong scent of detergent, of fabric softener, of newly laundered sheets. 

Perhaps Ryōta had jumped the gun, perhaps he’d been overly optimistic when he’d put fresh linens on the bed before he’d left the house for his date with Senpai.

But before he could wallow in despair he noticed the indicator light on his phone on the nightstand. A missed text. From Senpai. Sent hours ago. A single word. 

 _Goodnight_ , it read. And despite everything, it had been.

###

Kasamatsu-senpai was with his kids that weekend and so Ryōta didn't get a second date right away, like he had wanted to. Like he had really, really, reeeeally wanted to. In fact, a whole week and a half went by since their izakaya date. At least, Ryōta thought it was a date. He was counting it as one anyway even though when they’d said their goodbyes Ryōta hadn’t gotten so much as a smooch on the cheek, let alone a kiss on the lips. Most of Ryōta’s first dates ended with a tumble in bed.

It turned out that Yukio-senpai did not like talking on the phone much. And so in the week and a half since their first date, they had traded a few texts back and forth. The first of which was,  _I got your voicemails Kise. What the heck was that???_   Ryōta suspected Senpai was a square who didn't know how to use emojis because he could think of ten emojis off the top of his head that would’ve been a fitting punctuation to that message.

Their sporadic written communications were not nearly enough to quench Ryōta’s strong yearning to be with this man twenty-four-seven, but of course he was  _trying_  not to appear desperate. He remembered the sage advice in his sisters’ diaries after all. _Desperation was the single most effective man-repellant_ , he had read. 

He quickly discovered that Senpai’s life was a jumble of time constraints that was not conducive to Ryōta’s need for constant reassurance and instant gratification. For starters, Senpai worked _a lot_. He was in the office by eight each morning and didn’t leave until seven. He also commuted _a lot_ and lived an hour away by train.

To top it all off, Senpai had this annoying habit of not texting during the workday -- like he was busy or something -- and waiting until said train rides to respond to Ryōta’s texts. And for reasons unknown to Ryōta, Tuesday evenings were off limits for Senpai.

Being relegated to characters on a phone screen was rough on Ryōta who thought his allurement was most effective in the flesh where he could dazzle Senpai with this fabulous face and blinding smile. Though so far, Senpai seemed inexplicably immune to Ryōta’s obvious charms.

If Ryōta's enchantments had been effective, Senpai wouldn't make Ryōta wait so long to see him again.  _Just three stops on the Yamanote Line, Senpai_ , Ryōta had texted Kasamatsu-san in hopes that the man would take the hint and just come over during the week after work like Ryōta wanted. Senpai did  _not_  take the hint.

In the meantime, Ryōta learned that Senpai had joint custody of the kids with his ex-wife and that the kids were with their father only every other weekend. Senpai even left work early one evening just so he could go to the little one's soccer game, _on a weeknight_ , when it wasn't _even_ Senpai's turn with the kids. When Ryōta had asked Senpai to come over on a different day, Senpai had told Ryōta he had to work. _So unfair!_ Ryōta didn’t understand why Senpai was so keen on going to some dumb game. _How good was a little kid’s soccer match anyway?_ They'd be lucky if no one ran the wrong way or scored an own goal. Ryōta knew how those things went. He used to play soccer before he joined the basketball team at Teikō.

Ryōta was miffed, to say the least. But he was a reasonable, sensible adult who was _not_ going to put up much of a fuss -- no matter how many times in his life Midorimacchi had called Ryōta a “whiny man-child.”

 _Senpai, whyyyyyyy are you abandoning meeeeee?_  Ryōta had clamored to his empty apartment.

But alas, every cloud had a silver lining, and every situation was temporary, and this too shall pass and whatnot. Eventually even Kasamatsu Yukio had some free time.  

Their second date (at least Ryōta thought it was a date) took place the following Saturday. Yukio-senpai happened to be in the city that day. He was meeting with a project manager at a construction site to go over some building specs for a hospital that was being built using Senpai’s blueprints.

Ryōta invited Senpai to come over to his place when he was done with his meeting.  _Only three stops on the Yamanote Line_ , Ryōta texted the man a reminder.  _I'm very convenient_ , he'd said trying to flirt in emoji and hoping Senpai would take a hint and bring an overnight bag. 

While Kasamatsu was at his all-day meeting, Ryōta occupied his free time the way he usually did, getting a pedicure, a deep-tissue massage, and picking up fresh flowers on his way home.

Ryōta had a cleaning gal he’d gotten from Takaocchi because she’d had a falling out with Midorimacchi which didn’t sound strange to Ryōta in the slightest.

Yuki-kun did not do laundry or windows. So basically, she came over once a week and dusted his kitchen and all the picture frames Ryōta had of himself. She was great at getting the kitchen countertops so gleaming he could see his lovely reflection in them. This was not such a difficult feat at Ryōta’s place (like it had been at Midorimacchi and Takaocchi’s penthouse apartment) because the airline pilot was hardly there and he never used his kitchen. Ryōta was half tempted to turn the kitchen into a second walk-in closet, if he weren’t so concerned with the resale value.

Ryōta had wanted his apartment to be spotless for when Senpai visited for the first time and so he’d successfully sweet-talked Yuki-kun into coming over and cleaning it for him even though it was not her day to work and she was studying for a college exam.  

Yuki-kun had a key to his apartment which she used to let herself in since most of the time Ryōta was not even in the country.

She was already at his place when he came home from running errands. They chatted for a bit before Ryōta decided he should shower and wash off the massage oil.

By the time he was done with his shower, Yuki-kun was gone. Ryōta walked over to the refrigerator and picked up a bowl of his homemade avocado face mask. He’d just made it this morning before he left the apartment. He noticed some of it was gone already. That was about the only complaint he had about Yuki-kun.

She always seemed to swipe his avocado masks even though she never touched any of Ryōta’s expensive beauty products. He supposed he didn’t mind sharing his beauty secret with her all that much, since he always kept a supply around the house.

He applied a generous layer of the green mask to his face in front of his bathroom mirror, but when he went to put the rest of it away in the refrigerator, he noticed Yuki-kun had accidentally left behind her set of keys to his apartment on the kitchen counter.

Ryōta was about to text her when he heard her knocking. He grabbed the heart-shaped key ring and headed to the front door.

“I was just about to call --" He stopped short. It wasn’t Yuki-kun.

It was Yukio-senpai at his door. A startled Kasamatsu was staring at Ryōta’s green-coated face. His confused, dark bushy eyebrows were high on his hairline.    

"Eep!" Ryōta squealed in a panic slamming the door shut on Senpai's face. "What are you doing here?” the blond yelled through the keyhole. 

"What do you mean, what am I doing here? You're the one who said I should come over." 

"I _said_ come over after your meeting." 

"It _is_ after my meeting," Yukio said impatiently. 

"No it’s not. It’s two o’clock."

“My meeting finished early.” Yukio rapped on the door. “Open up Kise." 

" _No._ " 

"Kise, open the door." 

"Let me wash up first." 

"Kise, your neighbors are staring at me. Open the door this instant." 

Ryōta reluctantly relented and unlocked the door. He didn't think Senpai getting arrested for disorderly conduct and breaching the peace would make for a very good second date.

"What is wrong with you, idiot?" Kasamatsu asked as he pulled off his slip-on shoes and left them behind in Ryōta's genkan. "And more importantly, what is that on your face?"

"This?" Ryōta said cowering behind a shelf of CDs which unfortunately was not as tall as he was.

"Yes, that," Senpai said with an air of impatience.

“It’s nothing. I’ll go wash it off.”

"Come here," Kasamatsu said in an authoritative tone Kise imagined he used on the family dog. It was very effective.

Despite his wishes to run away and wash this green goop off his face Ryōta walked toward Senpai and even stooped, letting Senpai inspect him.

"Don't look," the blond pleaded. "I'm hideous." Ryōta desperately wanted to run to his bathroom and wash up so he could be pretty again.

"You're not hideous," Kasamatsu said and then he did something very odd. He ran a finger down one of Ryōta's runway ready cheekbones and inspected the goop. "Is that?" Yukio asked narrowing his eyes and then he put that finger in his mouth. "It _is_ ," Senpai confirmed.

Ryōta’s eyes widened in shock, “Senpai, no! What are you doing?!” He was about to call poison control, but then he remembered he'd made the mask himself so he knew there were no toxic ingredients.

"It's not bad,” he said taking another swipe, this time at Ryōta’s other cheek. “Though it needs more salt." 

"What? Huh?" Ryōta was hopelessly confused.

"It's guacamole."

"No," Ryōta said. "It's my homemade anti-aging avocado face mask."

Yukio-senpai shook his head. "No it’s not. It's guacamole," he insisted.

"No," Ryōta retorted. "I told you it's my --"

"Alright," Senpai said. "What's in it then?"

Ryōta began to rattle off a list of ingredients. "Ripe avocados _,_ " he said. "They're known for their antioxidants, Senpai." 

"Uh-huh," Kasamatsu said hoping to speed things along. 

"Salt," Ryōta said. "That's a natural exfoliant, you know." 

"Go on."                                                                  

"Cilantro and lime juice."

"Kise," Senpai informed him, "you've just listed the ingredients to guacamole." 

"You're wrong, Senpai." Ryōta insisted. "I've been using this wrinkle cream for years. It’s my beauty secret. That's why I have such a great complexion, see?" 

Senpai smiled that crinkle smile of his and for a moment Ryōta forgot about his own troubles. "Kise," he said, looking like the wheels in his head were turning. "Who gave you that recipe,  _er_ , I mean beauty secret?"

"My sister. The oldest one. When she got me into modeling-ssu."

"You mean, like, when you were in grade school?"

Ryōta nodded, but he still didn't see what this had to do with anything. 

“You’re the baby in your family right?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Don’t you see?”

Ryōta shook his head. He did not see.

“You’ve been pranked.”

“Pranked?”   

“I’m impressed,” Kasamatsu said, trying to stifle a laugh and doing a poor job of it. “I mean, I’m an older brother so I know a sibling prank when I see one. Still, I’ve never heard of one running this long.” Senpai whistled in astonishment. “I’ve got to hand it to your sister. She’s in a league of her own.”  

Ryōta huffed, “Senpai’s so meeean!” he whined. Kasamatsu-senpai was supposed to be on Ryōta's side, not praising his evil older sister. 

Senpai smiled his crinkled-eye smile again. It almost made the humiliation worth it. _Almost_.

“Go wash your face, idiot,” he said. And then he playfully smacked Ryōta on the bottom as the blond did an about face and headed to the bathroom sink.

Ryōta cleaned up nicely. He always did and when he came out of his bedroom to join Senpai in the living room, his former captain was stunned once again. This time for another reason. He looked tongue-tied for a moment, but then he turned his head to the side. “You, _uh_. You look good,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck and looking anywhere but at Ryōta.

Senpai’s awkwardness was incredibly endearing to Ryōta. There was something genuine about Kasamatsu’s unpolished courting skills that seemed new and refreshing, not like the practiced moves of the people Ryōta usually dated.  

They ordered Korean takeout from a restaurant down the street. Ryōta knew they had good food because Takaocchi always ordered from there whenever he, Midorimacchi, and their kids visited Ryōta in his apartment.

On the way back to the apartment with their takeout, they passed in front of the convenience store. Senpai teased Ryōta that they should go inside to buy some chips to go with Ryōta's "beauty mask." Ryōta wanted to stop at the convenience store to purchase _other_ things, though as a serial dater, the copycat had a well-stocked drawer in his night table.

Senpai gave Ryōta a playful, lopsided, boyish grin to go with all that teasing. It made the blond want to kiss him at that moment - right there in the middle of the sidewalk, but Ryōta refrained.

He remembered his sisters’ diaries that cautioned that the “guy” should always make the first move. There was that, and there was also something about Senpai’s cautiousness that reminded Ryōta of a wounded animal, that told him he should tread lightly with Senpai. He didn’t want to ruin this one.

Kasamatsu brought a DVD with him of a movie Ryōta had never watched. He took it out of the front pocket of his messenger bag the way one would unveil a hidden treasure.  

"It's the black and white 1954 original," he said in an excited tone as he pulled the shiny disc out of its plastic case. “My brothers and I used to watch it together and now my kids love it too,” he said, smiling that crinkle-smile of his.

The movie was about a prehistoric sea monster. Ryōta preferred romantic comedies. But Senpai was really into this one.

“I memorized the entire script,” he admitted bashfully. And there was that urge to kiss Senpai again. Instead, Ryōta buried his own face in a throw pillow. “You’re such a nerd,” he informed Yukio-san. Ryōta left out the part about how he really liked it.

Kise was familiar with the movie franchise, of course he was. Everyone was and Yukio couldn't believe his luck when Ryōta said he hadn't a single one of the films.

"We _have_ to watch them all," Senpai passionately proclaimed. “ _In_ order."

Ryōta smiled at the prospect of spending more time on his couch with Senpai watching old movies.

"How many more are there Senpai?" he asked. Ryōta could stand to watch a couple more bad movies if it meant he could snuggle up to Senpai.

“Twenty-eight.”

Ryōta looked at his large, high definition television projecting a grainy black and white giant lizard chewing on a string of train cars.

“Wow,” Ryōta said. “That’s _a lot_ of movies.”  

Ryōta waited patiently for Senpai to make a move. He waited all 96 minutes plus the ending credits for there to be some form of physical contact between them, but there wasn’t any.

When the movie ended, Senpai got up to retrieve it from Ryōta’s player. “Well,” he said. “It's been fun, but I better hit the road.”

“What? Already?” Ryōta knew that Senpai didn’t have work tomorrow. He was hoping he’d stay longer. A lot longer. “You could sleep over?” he blurted out before he realized it. _Shit. So much for treading lightly._

Senpai’s eyes widened as he gave Ryōta a deer caught in the headlights expression. “Uh,” he stammered. “I’d better get going.” He said. “It’s uh, it’s getting late.”  

###

Kise Ryōta examined his naked self critically in his bathroom’s full length mirror. He poked his cheek, it was still as collagen filled and youthful as ever. He turned to the side and poked his other cheek, the one that made up his perfect, pert derrière. It couldn’t be that either. It was still as firm and shapely as ever.

He flexed his pecs, his biceps, his triceps, the sinew muscles were all still there. His stomach was flat with deep ridges like he’d been sculpted by a renaissance artist. He followed the neatly trimmed sparse trail of blond hair down his abdomen. He had no complaints in that department either. Everything was in working order and as aesthetically pleasing as his face. From head to toe, he was drop dead gorgeous.

He just didn’t get it. There was absolutely nothing wrong with his physique. He worked out religiously. He ate like he was getting ready to go on the catwalk at a moment’s notice. He even got eight hours of sleep on his days off.

He manscaped, manicured, and pedicured on a regular basis. He bought his hair care products from his hairdresser where he regularly went in for trims and deep-conditioning treatments. Every night, he generously slathered on an avocado face mask he made himself. And  _no_ , no matter how emphatically Senpai insisted, it was  _not_  guacamole.

 _There was no going around it_ , Ryōta concluded. He was just as handsome as he’d always been.  _So why hadn’t Senpai spent the night? Why wouldn’t Senpai sleeeeep with him?_

Ryōta stayed up late, waiting until he was sure his sister was asleep so he could wake her with a late night phone call. He had a bone, or rather an avocado pit to pick with her.

"Pfft," she laughed. "You just figured that out today?"

"Yeah, whatever." Ryōta did not want to admit that technically he hadn't been the one to figure it out. "Onee-chan's so mean," he whined.

She laughed even harder. "What good is having an annoying little brother if you can't have fun at his expense?"

Ryōta grumbled, "I don't see what's so fun about it."

"You're the baby of the family and the only boy," she said. He was obviously the favorite.

“So what?"

"So Mommy and Daddy go gaga over you, that's what. It's supremely annoying," she explained. As bratty as her little brother had been, she couldn't imagine what Ryō-chan would've been like had _everyone_ in the family doted on him. "As your older sisters we _had_ to tease you. It's our duty. It's the natural order of things," she assured him, with mock solemnity. "I don't make up the rules."

The Kises lived a comfortable life in Kanagawa. The family had moved there from Tokyo so that Ryōta could attend Kaijō.

By that time, Ryōta’s sisters had left the house. The oldest one already married and on her way to having the first of Ryōta’s many blond nephews. The younger sister was in college when Ryōta had started high school. She'd eventually given Ryōta nieces.

There's was an average, though exceptionally good looking family. There was a saying that ugly parents made beautiful babies, but Ryōta didn't put much stock in that.

Both his parents were knockouts and had even won Best Looking Couple in their high school senior superlatives (Ryōta's father had also won Best Hair, edging out Ryōta's mother who'd come in second). The towheaded Kises were an exceptionally good looking bunch.

Ryōta’s father was an advertising executive or at least he had been until a few years ago when he retired. Ryōta’s mother had always been a homemaker and when her youngest moved out she acquired a Pomeranian named Mochi and began fussing over him instead.

Ryōta’s sisters would tease that Mochi was mom's youngest baby. Ryōta was only slightly jealous of the dog, though he'd never admit it. 

The considerable age gap between Ryōta and his older sisters was indicative of a bedroom mishap. That Ryōta was a "accident" was something his sisters loved to tease Ryōta about when he was a little kid. That was one narrative. The other one his sisters told was that mom had found Ryōta among the bok choy in the produce aisle and felt so bad for the unwanted baby she took him home.

 _Idiot,_ the younger and arguably more compassionate of his two sisters had called him when she grew tired of the sniffling six-year-old in the corner. _Of course the cabbage story’s not true_.

 _Don't you think it's no coincidence that we all look alike?_ she'd pointed out. _Plus there's all those baby pictures of you_  (Ryōta had always been photogenic even hours old in a beanie and swaddled in those unfashionable hospital-issued baby blankets), _even the gross one where the doctor's pulling you out of mom's --, never mind._

"Still," Ryōta said, upset about the beauty mask. "You and Risa-chan could've told me sooner," he groused.

"We honestly thought you'd figure it out, or at least give up when avocado season was over. Pfft," she started laughing again. "I'm sorry. It's just we didn't expect it to last this long."

Ryōta remained silent on the phone.

"Oh come on Ryō-chan, we were just toying with you."

"Stoooop. Don't call me that," he pouted.

"Sorry little brother. I just couldn't resist. You're so much fun to pick on." 

* * *

**AN:** First and foremost I wanted to thank you for all the kind reviews and the kudos on the last chapter. I took a little while to update this story because I was trying to finish up my MidoTaka fic, [Like Dreamers Do](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4405481/chapters/10004801). It takes place at the same time as FRI so there are mentions of KiKasa in that fic as well. This is my first time writing KiKasa so it’s quite a challenge for me. Thanks for sticking with this story ~ JMet


	4. Baggage Claim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Kise, what are you doing here? You’re going to miss your plane. You’re going to leave all those people stranded.” Kasamatsu sounded really concerned about the perceived fate of a bunch of strangers.

Ryōta was supposed to meet Kasamatsu-senpai at the train station and from there they were going to grab drinks and catch a local jazz band at a club Ryōta knew. Unfortunately, Senpai's meeting with a developer ran late.  _Really late_. After receiving a text from his former captain, Ryōta decided to head to Senpai's building and wait for the man there.   

While Senpai was in a client's boardroom in a skyscraper down the street, the receptionist at the architecture firm (who apparently was also working late tonight) invited Ryōta to wait in Senpai's office. She'd apparently received word that Ryōta was coming because she didn't seem all that surprised to see the former teen idol. She offered him tea and got Ryōta situated in what was unmistakably Kasamatsu-senpai's office.

On his desk, Kasamatsu had lots of pictures of the boys at various ages, the more recent ones included the family's golden retriever, Ryōta noticed. There were scale models of buildings, a diploma on the wall and framed awards and recognitions all bearing Senpai’s name. There was even a framed newspaper clipping of Kasamatsu in a suit holding a shovel in what appeared to be a ground breaking ceremony at a construction site.

There was also a poorly constructed house made of used popsicle sticks and glue. Ryōta could tell the wooden sticks were used because the food coloring on most of them hadn't washed off. The architect of the rudimentary art project had signed his name Kasamatsu Hajime, Age 8. Given that Senpai's oldest was now 12, it was evidently an old school project. The mini-architect seemed to favor grape-flavored popsicles judging from the number of purple popsicle sticks that made up the shabby shack.

Ryōta also noticed a yellow hard hat on top of a mahogany file cabinet in the corner of the room and wondered how often Senpai visited construction sites. He tried to picture the man wearing it and was surprised to discover he liked the image _a lot_. What Ryōta didn't see were any pictures of the ex-wife though it wasn't for lack of trying. He'd have to do some real snooping once he was sure he'd be left alone.   

He had a morbid curiosity about the woman who’d been formidable enough to break through Kasamatsu’s notorious shyness about striking up a conversation with the fairer sex. Ryōta remembered all too well how Moriyama used to tease Senpai about it in the club room. He couldn’t imagine how this woman had managed to get an ordinarily tongue-tied-when-it-came-to-girls-senpai to ask her out let alone propose marriage.   

"Animal Magnetism," the receptionist said to Ryōta when she came back with his tea. After setting the tea set down on Senpai's desk, she offered the inside of her wrist for the blond to sniff. At first the comment caught Ryōta off guard, but then he remembered he'd done a campaign for a new perfume line.

The photo shoot had taken place a few months back, but the cosmetics company was just now launching their product well in advance of the romantic Christmas holiday shopping spree that overtook the country each year. Consequently, black and white images of Ryōta's handsome face were once again plastered on the advertising pages of fashion rags and on billboards in choice locations across the city. The two-page spread in one of the magazines showed Ryōta laying on his side with nothing but a well-placed, over-sized cologne bottle covering the important bits.  

It wasn't the marketing blitz that he'd been subjected to in his youth, but it was for an established fashion house and his agent seemed more than pleased with himself for having landed the account. 

Ryōta waited for over an hour in Senpai's office before he started receiving apologetic text messages from the man on his walk back to the building. 

Fifteen minutes later, Yukio was in his office promising to make it up to Ryōta.

The blond noticed the man was sharply dressed in a suit and looked adorable with his winded face, his well-worn briefcase, and tubes of blueprints under his arm. 

Senpai set his things down. Shot off a few emails and then they were off.

###

There was no point in trying to catch the final act at the jazz club, by now the place was probably at capacity and even with connections, Ryōta's contacts may not have been able to get them in.

Instead, they walked into the nearest train station café.

If Senpai was going to insist on eating every time they saw each other Ryōta would really prefer that they patronize white tablecloth establishments. But Senpai seemed to have developed a penchant for cheap food and instant ramen if the stack of empty Styrofoam cups in the waste paper basket beside Senpai’s desk had been any indication. A nosy Ryōta had noticed them while waiting for the man earlier. 

"How was your weekend, Senpai?" Ryōta asked upon his return from the men's room. He took the seat across from Yukio. He was pleased to see that Kasamatsu had managed to nab a table for them at the busy café.

"Great," Yukio said. "Hiro-chan and I caught the new dinosaur exhibit at the natural history museum."

Kasamatsu Hiroshi was Senpai’s youngest. There was always amusement in Senpai’s voice whenever he talked about his boys. It prompted Ryōta to ask about the kids a lot and consequently he'd learned quite a bit.

For starters, although he didn't come out and say it, it was obvious Senpai loved being a father to boys. Ryōta knew from his days at Kaijō that Senpai had two younger brothers whom he took care of after practice, so it wasn't a stretch to see him now as a father of two young lads. 

Senpai and his boys seemed to prefer being outdoors. Ryōta noted that Senpai often took his boys on camping trips, to baseball games, and to the park near Senpai's parents' house. Anywhere where they could bring their dog too.

The little one was especially enamored with dinosaurs though both boys seemed to have inherited their father's terrible taste for giant lizard movies. 

"What about Hajime?" Ryōta asked, noting that Senpai hadn't mentioned taking his oldest to the museum. 

"He's twelve. You remember what you were like at twelve, right?"

"A dazzling ray of cheerful sunshine," Ryōta answered truthfully.

"You know what  _most_  people were like at twelve, right?"

"Yeah," Ryōta sighed because he'd known Aominecchi, not at twelve, but during his early teens and  _no one_  personified tall, dark and surly like a hormonally charged Daiki. "So he stayed home?"

"No, he went to a friend's house instead." Kasamatsu chuckled, "I guess he's getting too old to hang out with his old man." 

Ryōta nodded in sympathy, though truthfully he couldn't imagine not wanting to spend time with Senpai.  

Although his plans for a proper date had been thwarted by Senpai's work, Ryōta discovered that he'd enjoyed his dinner with Senpai at the train station café.  

###

Ryōta spent the next week and a half at various airports and in various cockpits.

He made it back to Tokyo on Saturday and was contemplating what to do with the rest of his weekend when he got an unexpected text from Senpai. The text was unexpected because it was usually radio silence when Senpai was with the boys and Ryōta knew it was Senpai’s turn with them this weekend.

Ryōta must've read the text fifteen times in the span of five minutes.

 _In Yokohama today,_  the text read.  _Change of plans. The kids are with their mother. She asked me to switch weekends with her. Wanna come over? Got the place to myself. We could watch the next movie. Only 27 left to go._  

This was  _it_. This was the fabled third date. Sure, they’d met up for dinner several times in a handful of weeks, but those hadn’t been proper dates. If you counted their first date at the izakaya (and Ryōta certainly did) and the day Senpai came over to Ryōta’s house, then this would be date number three. The blond was so excited, he could hardly stand still. He didn't even care that he was going over there to sit through another terrible lizard movie.

Ryōta was not used to this lull in the bedroom. He was a serial dater who was used to bed hopping. Ordinarily, he led a rather active love life. Although he dated both sexes, he'd only had a handful of relationships, all of them short-term, all of them women. It was easier that way. He didn't have to explain anything to his family and he could appease his mother every once in a while by sending the obligatory girlfriend photo. 

In record time, Kise had his leather weekender sitting on top of his large bed, cracked wide open. There were clothes strewn everywhere, he'd even brought some of the clothes he kept in the closet in the guestroom, and there was an orange box of condo--.  _Prophylactics_ , he corrected himself. He was dating someone now. Someone important. He should call them  _prophylactics_.

It seemed disrespectful to Senpai to call them condoms. Condoms were for fucking. _Prophylactics_ were for people who made love to each other and cared about each other and stared into each other's eyes and, and, and, . . . maybe read poetry together? Ryōta didn’t know. He could only guess. He didn't know what else people who used _prophylactics_ instead of condoms did, but it was definitely more meaningful than just plain old fucking. 

The orange box he had picked up on his way home from their train station dinner the other day. It was still in its shrink wrap. But he'd have to remember to walk to the convenience store at the end of his block on his way out to pick up a new bottle of lube, of  _lubrication_. He mentally amended the word. Because the bottle he had was three-quarters of the way gone and the label had started to peel and he'd last used it with whats-his-face.  _Well_ , he'd last used it with his right hand, but before that it had been with whats-his-face and he didn't think Senpai would appreciate it if he brought a used bottle of  _lubrication_  into Senpai's house.  

Ryōta looked at his phone again. It was still too early.  _Damn it_. Why had time decided to stand still when he was in such a hurry to see Senpai?

###

Kasamatsu-senpai lived in a four-story, narrow apartment building. The grey metal front doors of all the units were indistinguishable from one another save for the unit numbers affixed to each one. Unlike Ryōta’s building, there was no lobby, no doorman and no interior hallways. There weren’t even elevators. The doors of all of the units led to the outside. It was a world away from Ryōta’s fashionable Shibuya bachelor pad.

At the front of the nondescript building, there was a concrete corridor that ran horizontally on each floor. The corridor itself was bookended by a pair of concrete staircases on either side. Senpai’s unit was on the second floor and towards the center of the building. It was finally getting dark now and some of Senpai’s neighbors had started to turn their lights on. Ryōta counted the doors. Senpai had four neighbors to the right of him and six neighbors to the left.

"Ah, you're punctual," Kasamatsu said when he opened the front door of his tiny apartment and stepped aside to let Ryōta into his home.

"Pardon the intrusion," Ryōta said as he took his designer brogues off and placed them next to Senpai's worn sneakers. He liked the way that looked. Their shoes lined up beside each other, like they belonged together.

Ryōta was dressed to the nines, having tried on a multitude of outfits at home before finally deciding on the right one, but Senpai was wearing sweatpants and a faded t-shirt bearing the logo of his university in Kyoto. Ryōta thought Senpai looked devastatingly handsome in a devil may care kind of way.

“Where’s Ghidorah?” he asked. Ryōta knew the boys weren’t with their father tonight, but he’d still expected the friendly-looking golden retriever from all the photographs to greet him at the door.

“She doesn’t live here,” Kasamatsu explained. “She stays over when the kids do, but she lives with my ex-wife. My place is really too small for pets and she’d be lonely without the boys.”  

Kasamatsu-senpai stared at Ryōta like he was looking at a bug through a microscope. "I don't remember you being this punctual in high school," he commented. Senpai used to get a bit violent whenever Ryōta was late to practice because of a modeling gig.

The truth was that Ryōta had arrived an hour ago and then he'd sort of meandered about the neighborhood until it was finally evening and he could knock on Senpai's door without looking like a deranged stalker.   

Ryōta was tired of lugging his overstuffed overnight bag all this time and was more than ready to put it down somewhere. "Is that your room, Senpai?" he asked, gesturing to the door on the left.

Kasamatsu laughed. "That's the bathroom," he explained. 

"So then this is your room," Ryōtasaid already lugging his leather weekender with him to the opposite side of the narrow room.

" _No._  That's the closet," Yukio said.  

There was only the glass sliding door left and that clearly led to the small balcony. "Where's your room, then?" 

"You're standing in it?"

"Wha-"

"This is it. This is the living room and the dining room and also the kitchen and at night its the bedroom."

"Oh," Ryōtafelt his face heating up. He was such an idiot.

Kasamatsu must've picked up on Ryōta’s discomfort because he put his hand on Ryōta's shoulder and said, "Don't feel embarrassed about it. It's not so bad once you get used to it and it beats the pants off of living with my parents and sleeping in my old bedroom. Even my brothers have moved out." 

A tired Ryōta dropped his bag with a loud thud narrowly missing his own feet. The noise drew Yukio's attention to the leather weekender. "What's in the bag?" he asked.

"Oh, just clothes and stuff." It was full of toiletries, three pairs of shoes, four complete outfits and matching accessories. It may have been more than he needed, but as far as Ryōta was concerned, there was no such thing as over packing. He'd also packed prophylactics and lubricant, though he was more than happy to use whatever Senpai had on hand. 

"You working later or something?"

"Huh?"

"You know, your bag. Are you flying out tonight?" 

"What--," 

"After we watch the movie, are you heading to work? Is that why you brought your bag?" 

Ryōta had just come from work. Of course, he wasn’t piloting tonight. He had the next few days off. What’s more this was his fashionable leather weekender, not the standard-issue carry-on the airline provided to all its employees. Didn’t Senpai know the difference between a stylish bag and a utilitarian one? It suddenly dawned on Ryōta that he wasn't spending the night. That Senpai had invited him over, but he hadn't invited him for a  _sleep_ over.

"Uh . . . yeah," the blond stammered. "It's better if I bring all my stuff with me. Got my uniform right here," he said, nudging the overstuffed weekender with his socked foot.

"Well you'd better take it out. It'll get all wrinkled. I've got an iron, if you need to use one."

"No!" Ryōta said in a panic because there was no way he could conjure up a nonexistent pilot’s uniform. "That's not necessary, we've got lockers at work. Employee lockers. I can just change there." He rubbed the back of his head. This lying stuff wasn't as easy as it used to be.

Senpai raised a bushy eyebrow. "You alright?" he asked, examining Ryōta's pretty face.

Ryōta plastered a smile on his face, it didn't reach his eyes. "Just peachy," he said.

"You sure?"

And then, because he was desperate to change the subject Ryōta asked, "What's for dinner?"

Kasamatsu-senpai smiled, "I'm glad you asked."

###

Dinner, Ryōta learned, consisted of instant ramen. Senpai slid the shoji doors to his “closet,” if you could call it that. They revealed a small alcove where Senpai kept his futon mattress, a comforter, a few buckwheat pillows, and a folded blanket. Ryōta had a closet just for linen at home.

The narrow, rectangular space doubled as Senpai’s kitchen cupboard too. There, tucked away next to the minimal bedding was an off-brand electric tea kettle, a hotpot, a rice cooker, and an instant coffee maker. None of them stainless steel, all of them in mismatched colors of white, black and pea green for some reason. The little closet was also where Senpai kept stacks of Styrofoam ramen cups like the ones Ryōta had seen at Kasamatsu’s office the week before last.

Ryōta’s corner unit apartment had a spacious kitchen, a center island and a large window overlooking the city in front of his double sink. Ryōta hardly ever used it, but even he had more appliances than Senpai and all of them were stainless steel.

“If you’d like,” Kasamatsu said to Ryōta, looking unsure of himself for the first time, “I could order sushi.”

“No,” Ryōta insisted. “I’m fine with this,” he said, gesturing in the general direction of the dehydrated noodle bowls. He wasn’t here for the food, after all. It was more the company that had drawn him here to this tiny apartment in Yokohama.

Ryōta got a sneak peek into the bathroom when Senpai opened the door to it so he could fill the tea kettle with water before plugging it in. The room, like everything else in Senpai’s tiny home, was minuscule. Toilet, sink, shower, no tub. He’d have to snoop in the medicine cabinet later.

There were seven different kinds of mineral water in Ryōta’s refrigerator at the moment and he didn’t mean just seven bottles. Here, there was no refrigerator in sight and Senpai was using tap water to make their dinner.

Ryōta was very observant. He was one of those people who like to take in every detail of his surroundings. It was perhaps why he was so good at mimicking others, why’d he’d developed perfect copy. He also liked to snoop. But there really was nothing to see in this bare room.

There was a small coat closet in the genkan which was where Senpai probably kept his clothes, Ryōta guessed. There weren’t any other spots where they could be hiding. Ryōta had two closets at home. He had a large walk-in-closet in the master bedroom and the closet in the spare bedroom was also packed to the gills with designer duds.    

###

They had dinner out on Senpai’s balcony. It was a pleasant autumn night and there was a cool breeze. Senpai had two outdoor seat cushions on the floor of the balcony, but the space was much too small for actual patio furniture.

“I don’t have any outdoor slippers,” Senpai told Ryōta. “So you’ll just have to step on the cushions and mind the space between them.” 

The balcony was a narrow rectangle that ran the length of Senpai’s apartment and overlooked the train tracks that led to the nearby station. Every few minutes, like clockwork a new train coming into the station.

He had to hand it to the acoustics in Senpai’s building. He couldn’t hear the trains when he and Senpai had been inside the apartment. It was only when they had slid open the glass doors to the balcony that he could hear the trains whizzing by.

If he were honest, he kind of enjoyed watching the trains come in. There was something rhythmic and dependable about them and soon he realized he didn’t mind the noise so much either.

They were sitting beside each other, legs crossed and facing the tracks. Kasamatsu was quietly snickering.

“What’s so funny, Senpai?” Ryōta asked.

“It’s just that I can tell you like watching the trains,” he said, before slurping noodles into his mouth. “Hiro-chan does the same thing. He could sit out here for hours. I was a bit hesitant about renting a place behind the train tracks, but the building has good soundproofing and it’s entertaining to watch them go by. In the end, it’s what sold me. That and the location.”   

While facing the train tracks was not ideal, Ryōta had to admit that Senpai was in a pretty good location considering he took the train each weekday morning into Tokyo.

Ryōta also knew that Senpai’s parents’ house wasn’t too far from here. It was a long walk in comfortable shoes, but definitely still walking-distance.

“Ghidorah likes the trains too,” Kasamatsu said to Ryōta. “But she likes them a little _too_ much. She gets overly excited when she sees them and starts barking, trying to get their attention. She can be a bit of a nuisance,” he admitted. "She's hyperactive and easily excitable and thinks she's alap dog, when she's actually not."

Yukio-senpai pressed his lips together trying to smother a laugh, "remind you of someone?" he asked and Ryōta suddenly realized he was practically sitting on top of Senpai’s seat cushion. He scooted to the left a little bit, giving Senpai some room.

Ryōta frowned into his cup of ramen. He did not appreciate being compared to the dog. He dipped his chopsticks inside his Styrofoam dinnerware and picked up a pink pebble. _Shrimp_ , he realized, when he popped it into his mouth. And still too hot. He started blowing air out of his mouth in hopes that he could alleviate his already scorched tongue by blowing some steam out of his piehole.

Yukio-senpai laughed even harder. “Hiro-chan does that too,” he said. “He always complains I make it too hot. But there’s only one setting on the tea kettle and it’s not like I can add ice cubes. I tell him he’s just got to wait and let it sit, but he’s so impatient.”

Ryōta smiled thinly. _Great._  Ryōta did not want to remind Senpai of his five-year-old  _or_  the dog. He wanted to remind Senpai of something hot and shaggable. 

"He must get it from his mother,” Yukio said. “Come to think of it, she does it too."

 _Not her either,_ Ryōta thought.He did _not_ want to remind Senpai of her.

He could see why Senpai chose to settle down in this particular apartment. It was small, but conveniently located and most of the time Senpai was by himself so he could easily make do with the small confines.

The thought of Senpai spending most of his time alone in this little apartment without so much as a houseplant made Ryōta sad for some reason, even though Ryōta also didn’t have so much as a houseplant. Though Ryōta’s surroundings were much nicer, he too lived alone and spent time by himself.

He supposed it was easier not to feel alone in the heart of a big city with people constantly walking by in front of your building. If Ryōta wanted company, he could just walk out to the bustling streets, to the bustling nightlife and chat someone up. He had not done that in a while though.

Trolling for dates had lost its appeal ages ago though he still got dolled up and went out. He didn’t want that anymore. He knew that. But he wasn’t sure what Senpai wanted out of this either.

Kasamatsu was someone who was putting his life back together after it had been torn apart, Ryōta realized. The blond wasn’t really sure where he fit in in all of this.

There was a small structure – scraps of wood hammered together -- in the corner beside Ryōta.

“Haji-chan and I are working on a project,” Kasamatsu explained. “It’s going to be a birdhouse. We’re going to sand it down and paint it. There’s an ume tree in front of our house. I mean – the house where the kids live,” he said, slipping up.

“And it blossoms every spring. It’s _really_ something. The kids have a swing there. And we thought it’d be nice if we hung a birdhouse on one of its branches. Haji likes to build things. He’s really good with his hands,” he informed Ryōta. “I think he’s going to follow in his old man’s footsteps. Become an architect, maybe an engineer.” Kasamatsu was smiling that proud papa smile Ryōta had grown to love.

The blond thought of the pasted together popsicle sticks in Senpai’s office and wondered whether parents saw potential in their kids that others didn’t. And maybe that’s what people needed, to be nurtured even if they weren’t very good at something at first.

Ryōta picked up what he’d just been informed was the beginnings of a birdhouse for a closer inspection. He felt a sharp pain on his finger and almost dropped it.

“Are you alright?” Senpai asked, carefully taking the birdhouse from Ryōta and setting it back down in the corner.

“I think I’ve got a splinter,” Ryōta answered. Looking at the thin, sharp piece of wood sticking out of his index finger. He tried to grab at it, but he couldn’t manage to pinch it. He’d have to get a pair of tweezers from his bag.  

“It’s alright,” Senpai said and Ryōta could already feel the tears welling up for reasons that had nothing to do with his throbbing finger. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was going to ruin this before it even got started.

“Wait here,” Senpai told Ryōta. He went inside the apartment for a moment and came back with a candle stick, a lighter and a box of bandaids. 

"No don't do that,” he said, noting that Ryōta was still trying to pinch the splinter with his fingers. “You'll make it worse." 

"What?"

"Come here,” he said, lighting the candle. “You've got to pour hot wax on it. It'll come right out."

Kasamatsu took Ryōta’s hand even as the skittish blond was reluctant to offer it. “It’s not so bad,” Yukio assured him. “This happens to Haji a lot and it works like a charm.”

Ryōta watched as drops of hot candle wax dripped onto his finger, coating the splinter in a red film until he couldn’t see it any more. Kasamatsu-senpai blew on Ryōta’s finger, helping the wax dry faster. When the substance had become solid again, Senpai peeled it off, taking the splinter out with it.

When he was done, Senpai pulled a square foil out of the pocket of his sweatpants. He tore it open pulling out a pre-moistened alcohol swab. “When Haji was younger, he insisted I kiss his boo boos,” he said wiping the swab on Ryōta’s injured finger. “He’s gotten too old for that,” Kasamatsu said, looking right at Ryōta. “I’m sure you have too.”

They were so close, Ryōta could feel the heat between them. He could so easily bridge the distance.

Yukio blinked first. He cleared his throat, taking a band-aid out of the cardboard box and wrapping it around Ryōta’s finger. “These are Hiro-chan’s,” he informed Ryōta of the triceratops-patterned band-aids. “I’m sure if he were here, he wouldn’t mind sharing them with you.”

Ryōta somehow found his breath, "Thanks for taking care of me, Senpai."

"It was no big deal," Senpai responded, before Ryōta could get  _too_  worked up about it. "Like I said, Haji-chan used to do it all the time when he was younger." 

Yukio-senpai smiled all crinkle-eyed. Ryōta's heart sped up in response, like it was bouncing around in a pachinko machine.

Kasamatsu looked at the cheap plastic watch around his wrist. "Do you have time to watch the movie or do you have to go soon?" he asked.

Ryōta was immediately pulled out of his daydream. “What?"

"What time do you have to leave for work?"

"Oh yeah, _that_ ," he said sounding dejected.  

"I'm not kicking you out or anything, but don't forget Narita is further away from here than it is from Tokyo." 

"Yeah," Ryōta said resigned. “I guess I'd better get going then." 

"You sure you don't want to change here first?"

"Positive." 

"Alright, I'll walk you to the door then." 

###

With a heavy weekender bag and an even heavier heart, Kise Ryōta descended the concrete steps to the first floor of Kasamatsu’s apartment building.

He walked the handful of blocks to the train station and then it hit him. The feeling of complete and utter desolation. He was such an idiot. Why the hell did he think Kasamatsu-senpai was inviting him over to spend the night? Inviting him over for sex? Slung over his shoulder was the weight of his preposterous presumptuousness.  

 _Damn it_. He was not in a good place now. He just wanted to cry with the heft of his disappointment. And not those fake crocodile tears he could turn on and off at whim, either. Real ones. Why couldn’t he tell Senpai he wanted to spend the night? 

He was approaching the station now and took out his wallet so he could get his transportation pass. His eyes were watering and he wasn’t really paying attention to his surroundings when he got bumped by a group of twenty-year old girls heading out tonight.

“Sorry Onii-san,” one of them called out as they hurried off into the station.

 _Fuck off_ , Ryōta wanted to reply. He really wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Not when he was feeling like this. He didn’t have the energy to put on the veneer of a cheerful, carefree persona.

And then he realized it. _Oh Shit_.

One minute his wallet was in his hand, the next minute he wasn’t holding anything. He looked down at his feet. It wasn’t there either and then he saw it, the wallet had slipped through the grate covering the storm drain. _Fuck_. He tried fishing it out with his fingers, but he couldn’t clasp it. It was too far down and who knew what could be lurking down there. _Probably earthworms._ Ryōta shuddered at the thought, however irrational.

One minute he was heading home. The next minute he was stranded. In Yokohama. Without a pass card or money.

He looked at his phone. At least he still had that. His first instinct was to call Kazunari and have the hawkeye pick him up. He would bail Ryōta out in a heartbeat. He’d gotten him out of bigger messes than this. He was about to dial the number to Midorimacchi’s house when he stopped himself.

There was a huge downside to his plan. He’d have to explain to Takaocchi what he was doing here and he wasn’t ready to do that yet. Of course, Takaocchi had been the one to invite Senpai to that recreational league game in the first place with the intent of playing Cupid, but Ryōta wasn’t sure where things stood between him and his former captain right now. He wasn’t sure he was in a relationship and he didn’t want to let anyone else in on it yet either.

Even if Ryōta lied – which he was inclined to do – Takaocchi was smart, he’d figure it out. He was out and about, carrying an overnight bag, in Senpai’s neighborhood. It was obvious Ryōta had no business being in Yokohama, but for Senpai. Yeah, the hawkeye would piece it together, alright. And then he’d tease him and Ryōta did _not_ want to be teased right now. The man would probably try to get the sordid details out of the ordinarily loose lipped blond on the long drive home -- which would be even more humiliating in that there was nothing to tell.

That left him with one other option.

###

“Kise, what are you doing here? You’re going to miss your plane. You’re going to leave all those people stranded.” Kasamatsu sounded really concerned about the perceived fate of a bunch of strangers.

“I don’t have to work tonight,” a contrite Ryōta admitted.

As humiliating as it was, Ryōta came right out and told Kasamatsu-senpai everything. Maybe not the part about packing “provisions,” but the other really embarrassing stuff like how he’d misread a text and gotten his signals crossed and thought it was, well _more_.

 "Baka, if you wanted to spend the night, you should’ve just said so."

"So . . . ."

Yukio-senpai shook his head in exasperation, but it was a fond exasperation. "Come on in, idiot," he said stepping aside to let Ryōta into his tiny home. 

"Pardon the intru--"  

"Yeah, yeah, get in already before I change my mind." 

Ryōta hustled into Senpai's miniature abode lest the man change his mind. As Ryōta passed Yukio-senpai in the doorway, the shorter man smacked Ryōta’s pert derrière, like he used to do on the basketball court. "Damn brat," he called him.

Ryōta hadn’t been gone for very long, but Senpai appeared to have been getting ready for bed. The tea kettle was gone and he’d already set down the futon and on a low table in the corner of the room was a tiny television set playing the next installment in the giant lizard franchise.

However humiliating the circumstances that got him here, Ryōta felt glad to be back in Senpai’s one-room apartment.  

* * *

  **AN:** Well, I did say it was going to be a slow romance. Bear with me dear readers, we're almost there. 


	5. But, Senpai. It’s the third date!!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a brief interruption, Ryōta gets what he wants.

"Well," Senpai said after Ryōta had removed his shoes and they were both inside the apartment again. "You wanted to spend the night, what'd you have in mind?"

Ryōta blushed.

"I didn't mean it like that _idiot_ , I meant what did you want to do next?"

Ryōta couldn't say he wasn't a little disappointed in Senpai's remark. He'd be more than okay with it if Senpai were inclined to do _that_.

He looked around the one-room apartment. He'd only just left it a little while ago, but already it seemed to have changed its character.

For one thing, the lights were dimmer. Senpai had taken a bath, Ryōta could smell the soap on his skin and the clean scent of shampoo coming of his hastily towel dried hair. It was even spikier than usual and Ryōta couldn't help but smile at Senpai who looked like an annoyed baby otter.

The futon was out and evidently Senpai had planned to go to bed after Ryōta had left, _the first time_.

Senpai's tiny television was on and the volume was set on low and even though this seemed like temporary digs, there was something homey and lived in about Kasamatsu-senpai's tiny apartment that made Ryōta want to spend more time in it. And then he noticed it. Now that the bedding had been removed, sitting in the back of the open closet was the thing he wanted to do next.

Senpai followed his gaze and instantly read his mind. "Oh no. There's no way, I'm doing that," he told Ryōta.

"Pleeeeease, Senpai." Ryōta was not too proud to beg. In fact, given the right circumstances, he really enjoyed begging.

Senpai's cheeks puffed up and he looked really irritated, but then he walked over to the closet anyway and said, "Fine, but just one song. And you can forget about hearing me sing. I'm not doing it."

"That's okay Senpai. I can --"

"And you're not singing either. One bar out of you and I'm stopping."

"Wahh!" Ryōta complained. "Senpai's so mee--"

Yukio-senpai made a gesture like he was going to put the guitar away and Ryōta quickly shut up.

In high school, the small forward had known when to push Senpai’s buttons and when not to push Senpai's buttons. Evidently, he'd still retained that seldom used sixth sense.

Kasamatsu sat cross-legged on one side of the futon and Ryōta took a seat at the other. The dark haired man held Ryōta's undivided attention.

The way Yukio-senpai gripped the guitar made Ryōta's mouth go dry. The way Senpai's hand wrapped around the machine head and the way his fingers stretched over taught strings did something else to Ryōta entirely.

Senpai held an acoustic guitar on his lap. It was old and worn and Ryōta could tell, like Senpai, it was much loved even if it had seen better days.

It was with practiced ease that Senpai held his instrument and Ryōta could readily picture a younger Yukio-senpai in his room at his parents' house, sitting at the window seat playing his guitar at night after he'd finished his homework.

It was a sight he never actually saw, though as a teenager he'd often fantasize about.

Yukio-senpai had a serious expression on his face and there was a vertical crease between his furrowed brows.

The look of concentration on Senpai's face seemed more at home in a darkened stage at a smoky club, than on a futon in sweatpants and a faded university t-shirt in this tiny room for an audience of one. Yet there was something very intimate about this moment. It felt like Senpai was bearing his soul to Ryōta when he had yet to play a single note.

And then Senpai began to make music out of hallow wood and wires. And it was beautiful.

 _Play songs for them_ , Ryōta thought. People in relationships serenade the ones they love.

Ryōta thought that Senpai playing his guitar was the most achingly beautiful thing he'd ever seen, but then Senpai closed his eyes, his expression changed, he was being swept away by the notes, the chords, the bridge and then he began to sing, very quietly at first, and Ryōta was so enraptured by it, by _him_.

And suddenly Ryōta was struck by heartache. Struck with everything he'd wanted and had gone away -- had never materialized -- when Senpai left him.

Sure they'd had a rough start that one-year at Kaijō. Ryōta did not impress Senpai with his model good looks or his kiseki no sedai pedigree. And from their very first meeting Senpai had put Ryōta in his place.

But then Ryōta accepted Senpai as his captain, learned to respect the third-year-senior for his strong leadership, for his determination, and commitment to the team.

He fell for Senpai. He fell hard.

And when Ryōta let Yukio down that last game, Yukio did not let Ryōta shoulder the burden. His captain blamed himself, only himself, and not Kise, never Kise.

By the end of his first year, Ryōta was in love with his captain. And then Kasamatsu graduated and suddenly he vanished from Ryōta's life.

Kasamatsu opened his eyes. He stopped playing and set the guitar down. "Why are you crying?" he asked, his voice full of concern.

Ryōta sniffed as he dried his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt, these weren't his usual crocodile tears. They were thick and full of emotion. They stung.

"Because you left me," he said. His voice barely a whisper. "You didn't so much as visit or call. You just left."

"I'm sorry Kise," he said. "You're right. That was really shitty of me."

"Yeah," Kise agreed and suddenly for the first time he felt his temper flare up at Senpai. "It was." Kise hadn't expected to be so honest with Senpai, but it was true. Senpai had hurt him.

Kasamatsu's graduation had marked the start of a dark period for Kise at Kaijō. He lost interest in everything. His already terrible grades took a nose dive and while he still played basketball, he was still the team's ace, he never regained that sense of purpose and teamwork he'd felt his first year.

He'd felt hallow inside. Not that anyone would know it by looking at him -- Ryōta could mimick happiness better than anyone -- but he lost himself again when Senpai left.

Yukio's radio silence after heading to uni had devastating consequences on Ryōta.

"I liked you." Kise admitted. "You were always telling me not to get a big head, not to be so cocky. And I, like an idiot, actually thought you liked me back."

Ryōta was getting teary eyed again. _And damn it_ , he was ruining everything right now by being honest, but now that he'd started he couldn't seem to get himself to shut up. "I thought that you had feelings for me too," he told Kasamatsu.

"I'm sorry," Yukio said. And Ryōta felt like the world's biggest idiot. Of course Kasamatsu hadn't felt the same way towards him. He was just a 'damn brat' to Senpai.

"I'm sorry I didn't call or text or come back and visit you," Kasamatsu continued. "I missed you. I missed the team, but I missed you more. And _no_ , you didn't imagine all that. The truth is I was ashamed. When we lost that game. I let you and the team down."

"Wha--"

"Just hear me out," Kasamatsu said when Ryōta tried to interrupt him, "All of you worked so damn hard and I just couldn't come through for you. I tried my hardest and we still lost. I didn't know how to face the guys and you especially --"

Kise was stunned into silence. All this time, he had thought that Senpai had moved onto uni and forgotten about them, about him.

"I looked for you in the audience. At graduation. And when I didn't see you. I guess it was just as well. I let you down."

"Senpai, no --, that's not why I didn't go, I --"

"Look," he said, meeting Ryōta gaze. "If I had thought for one moment that I had hurt you, that I was causing you pain, I would've run back to you immediately. I just figured our time playing together was up and that you had moved on and that I should too."

Ryōta didn't know what to say to any of that, but it didn't matter because Senpai wasn't done talking.

"I thought about you. I thought about you a lot actually, those first few months at uni. I'm not gonna lie to you. It scared me a little bit. You were the first guy I thought of -- _in that way_. I was freaked out at first. But I was still willing to give it a shot. I mean, it's you, right? I thought that when you came of age --"

Kise raised a quizzical eyebrow and Yukio chuckled. " _Honestly_ , Kise you were sixteen and I was eighteen. _Nothing_ was going to happen between us, alright? I thought that when you turned eighteen, I'd contrive some excuse to meet up with you again. But before that happened, in that two year span I met Hana."

"Hana?"

"Haruyama Hanami. _Well_ , Kasamatsu Hanami," Senpai said and like an idiot Ryōta couldn't help but repeat her first name, sound it out in his mouth, feel the syllables that made up this other woman.

 _Hanami_ , a stunned Ryōta kept repeating the name in his head. He wasn't about to refer to her as Kasamatsu-san. He knew Senpai had been married before. It was no secret. Takao had briefed him on that, but hearing her name for the first time made her seem that much more real.

"Yeah," Senpai said. "She kept my family's name. After the divorce. It was too much of a hassle, what with the kids --" Senpai sort of tailed off and then he added, "but that will all change soon."

"Soon?"

"She's getting remarried. It's--. Look, it's not important."

Kise studied Senpai intently as the man opened up about his ex-wife for the first time.

"Anyway, we met at a gōkon. One of those group dating things --. Figures, right? I'm shit with women. You _know_ , I'm shit with women. I don't have to tell _you_ that. Always have been."

Ryōta fought the urge to nod in agreement. It was one of Senpai’s most endearing traits. He had no clue how attractive he was, how the girls used to pine over Kaijō's short-fused captain. And yet the man would get all tongue-tied.

Yukio laughed self-deprecatingly. "I'm shit with men too, apparently." Kasamatsu paused to look at Kise, but the blond wasn't giving anything away.

"Come to think of it," he scratched the back of his head, "I wasn't even supposed to go to the gōkon, but someone dropped out at the last minute. They were short a guy and my roommate invited me."

Kise thought about how fortuitous that all had been, how everything would've been different, how _his_ life would've turned out differently if one stupid schlub hadn't dropped out of a group dating thing.

"Her name means spring and it was cherry blossom season and I thought it was fate."

Ryōta realized that this must've taken place during Senpai's second year at uni, a mere two months before June, before the blond's eighteenth birthday. And that while he was pining for Senpai, Senpai was six hours away in Kyoto falling in love for the first time. Ryōta's mouth tasted bitter.

An oblivious Yukio continued with his story. "She took me back to her dorm that night, after the gōkon. She lived alone, had a falling out with her roommate. Hana was a year older than me. More experienced. I was a bumbling mess that night," he said as if he were reliving it. "She was my first. I wasn't hers. And at the time, I thought she was just what I needed."

"Hanami and I, we rushed into things. Well things rushed us and before we knew it we had a baby on the way and a quickie wedding to plan and _fuck_ , my mother was furious with me. Right up until the wedding she barely said three words to me. She'd send my father to talk to me. Of course all that change when Hajime was born. She was head over heels in love with her first grandchild." Senpai grinned that crinkle-smile of his at the mere mention of his son.

"I was only in my second year at uni. Hana had to drop out of school and somehow I managed to graduate. I got a job offer with an architecture firm and we moved to Yokohama to be near my parents and for a while, things were good. Things were _really_ good. And we were happy."

"I drew up blueprints for a house, eventually we scraped together enough money for a plot of land and we built a life together. She started working. I think part of her resented me for taking that away from her. For causing her to give up her dreams, grow up so quickly. I don't think she ever forgave me for that. And, fuck, this is so cliché, but she started seeing her boss." Yukio unexpectedly laughed. "It was her boss. She started seeing her boss."

"And it all came to a head. And it _killed_ me. It tore my heart in two, what she did. But we had a son and a house and a life together and I wanted to make it work. She got a different job. We went to marriage counseling, we had a second child and in the end," Kasamatsu shrugged his shoulders, "she went back to him. They're getting married next month."

Ryōta found his misplaced tongue. "Senpai, I don't know what to say, I --"

"She's a good mother," he assured Ryōta and the blond was surprised Senpai had even one nice thing to say about his ex-wife, all things considered.

"She was a terrible wife," Yukio-senpai admitted, "but as a mother. I can't really fault her." And then he laughed ruefully. "I guess it's better this way. I prefer that she be a good mother and a terrible wife, than the other way around."

There was some sadness in the lopsided smile that hung from the corner of Senpai’s lips and a tinge of melancholy beneath his eyes. Then, for the first time, Ryōta was struck with a thought, a very unpleasant thought.

 _Was Senpai still in love with this hussy?_ He silently asked, staring into his own lap like he was divining tea leaves.

It was not a concern Ryōta could voice aloud. Whatever his proprietary feelings were toward Senpai -- _I saw him first_ , he wanted to say to no one in particular -- he wasn't sure where he stood in this bizarre love triangle.

"Kise, I'm telling you all this because I like you."

Ryōta's heart sprouted wings at hearing those unexpected words tumble from Senpai's lip. "I like you _a lot_ , actually," Kasamatsu said.

Ryōta was quick to join in, "I like you too, Senpa--"

"I'm not finished yet, idiot."

"Oh, sorry, Senpai."

"As I was _saying_ ," Yukio-senpai gave him an annoyed look at being interrupted, but there was no ill will in it. "I like you," Kasamatsu repeated and Ryōta grinned happily at hearing those words a third time. If he were a puppy, he'd most definitely be wagging his tail right now. "But I think we're moving too fast. You want to sprint and I want to pace myself for a marathon."

 _Oh_ , Ryōta's imaginary tail stopped abruptly.

"Don't give me that look," Senpai said. "It's not the end of the world. I just. I know you're not the most patient of persons," that was an understatement if ever there was one, "but I just need you to give me some time okay?"

"Time?"

"Yeah, I'm not asking you to wait forever. It's just," Yukio-senpai sighed. He ran a hand through his hair and Ryōta wished the man didn't look so broken up about it. "I'm not very good at this."

"This?" Ryōta asked, swallowing around the lump in his throat. Senpai was not very good at _this_?

"This talking stuff. I hate it. I mean, I like talking to you, I just hate talking about this." Senpai paused. He licked his lips, Ryōta subconsciously mimicked the gesture. "It's just that, well I _just_ got divorced."

Ryōta bit his tongue. He wanted to point out to Senpai that that was over a year ago, that the ink was certainly dry on those papers and that his marriage was over well before then.

"Hana and I."

 _Oh fuck_ , there was that name again. Suddenly those feelings of insecurity swooped in. His stomach was in a knot. He _knew_ it. Senpai was still in love with her. Ryōta was devastated. He was blinking back tears. His one saving grace was that Senpai couldn't even look him in the eye. Senpai was staring at his black socks.

"Hana and I rushed into things and when it was all over. I'm not gonna lie. I was devastated. I felt like I had let everyone down, but especially my two boys. And it took me a while to get myself to where I am today," he said gesturing to the tiny apartment, trying to infuse a bit of humor into the somber situation.

Ryōta just had to keep it together for a bit. He kept telling himself that. _Just keep it together._ As soon as Senpai was done shredding Ryōta's heart to pieces. He'd make up some excuse. He'd call Takaocchi to come pick him up. He could cry his eyes out on his way home. He just needed to not do it here.

"I'm trying to be respectful, you idiot!"

"Huh?"

"Look. I'm not stupid. We're both adults. I know what you wanted to do here tonight. My point is. You're very important to me."

"Huh?"

"And I don't want to rush this."

"Huh?"

"Are you even listening to me? Idiot, why are you crying again?"

"I thought you were breaking up with me, Senpai?"

"Breaking up? _What?_ I'm trying to tell you that I don't want to sleep with you."

 _Ouch. That was way harsh, Senpai._ Forget all that stuff about keeping it together, Ryōta was full on wailing right now.

"I didn't mean it like that. I mean. I do want to sleep with you. Just now right now. I want to take things slow. Okay?"

Ryōta was not convinced. This was not the type of response he got when he flung himself at someone. He was used to a more receptive audience.

Yukio-senpai, had evidently picked up on Ryōta's uneasiness, "Look I feel like the world's biggest idiot asking you to wait. I mean I'm thirty-three, for crying out loud. I'm not some snot nosed brat. And it's not like I've never done this before. I'm a grown man and I've got kids and I just --. It's not you. You're gorgeous. Believe me, you are _gorgeous_. And it's not the logistics," he paused, " _well_ , we can figure that out later. I just --"

Senpai brushed the fringe out of Ryōta's eyes. Senpai's hands were warm, his fingers calloused from years of playing a string instrument. "Can you give us that?" he asked so very sweetly. "Can you just give us some time to kind of just be a couple first before we introduce _that_ into our relationship?"

Ryōta nodded because he was so choked up, he wasn't even sure he'd be able to give a verbal response. And then Senpai hugged him and it felt like that knot in his stomach was slowly dissipating.

"Is this okay?" Senpai asked him and Ryōta nodded again. "More than okay," he croaked.

Ryōta was so close to Senpai he could feel warmth radiating off of him. He was so close to Senpai he could smell him. Yukio-senpai smelled of pining and longing and sleepless nights wondering what to do next.

Yukio-senpai smelled like Ryōta’s first year at Kaijō. He smelled of butterflies and self-conscious laughter and nervous fidgeting.

Kise swallowed thickly as their eyes met. "How about this?" Yukio asked, cupping Ryōta's jaw, wiping away already drying tears with his calloused thumbs. "Is this okay?" he needlessly asked and Ryōta nodded.

And then Kasamatsu-senpai kissed him. He kissed Ryōta's lips.

It was soft and tender and so full of promise, how could Ryōta doubt Senpai’s intentions.

When it was over, Ryōta touched his lips, trying to hold on to that first kiss.

Kasamatsu smiled at him. "You don't have cherish it," he said. "There will be others," he teased.

And then suddenly Senpai was pulling Ryōta in for a second kiss. "Soon," he whispered. "Your gorgeous and you're driving me crazy." Senpai admitted that bit of human weakness looking adorably self-conscious and Ryōta couldn't help but smile fondly at him.

"Yeah," Ryōta agreed. It warmed his heart to hear Kasamatsu-senpai own up to that, Kasamatsu-senpai who still had no clue how good-looking he was in his own right.

Senpai, who was even more irresistible now that he was older -- what with his crinkle-eyed smiles and salt and pepper hair.

"I'm not going to hold out on my boyfriend forever," Senpai said, trying to sound causal about using that word for the first time, "just for a little bit."

 _Boyfriend_ , Ryōta thought beaming smugly.

"Oi! Don't get cocky," Yukio-senpai chided. "Damn brat," he said.

###

Ryōta woke up to the realization that Senpai had terrible window treatments. They were those plastic vertical blinds that came equipped with most apartments and the sun was peeking through each and every poorly aligned slit.

He also woke up to the realization that he was being spooned and that somehow in the dead of night and in the unconsciousness of sleep Senpai had decided that Ryōta was going to be the little spoon.

Senpai’s tiny bathroom was poorly equipped, Ryōta thought as he snooped inside it.

Senpai used an all-in-one shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. How could one product accomplish three distinct purposes? To make matters worse, not only was it _not_ a salon - exclusive product, it wasn't even a brand name. It was a generic drugstore brand that also promised to remove flakes.

Ryōta really hoped Senpai wasn't suffering from scalp issues.

Luckily Ryōta always traveled with a whole assortment of beauty products.

The little counter space that was available around the sink was taken up by three toothbrushes. Senpai's was the plain blue one. He definitely brushed too hard, Ryōta thought noting the sad state of the bristles. Haji's was probably the one from the terrible lizard franchise and Hiro's was the one shaped like a t-rex.

 _Boyfriend_ , Ryōta thought as he looked at his handsome face in the mirror and smiled.

Ryōta freshened up in the tiny bathroom, making sure he looked stunning before crawling back into the futon, pretending to still be asleep.

Ryōta sighed happily as he buried his nose in Yukio-Senpai's t-shirt-clad chest. Senpai smelled of sleep and it was wonderful.

"Good morning," Ryōta whispered sometime later when Yukio opened a gummy eye.

Ryōta smiled as he snuggled up to Senpai. Now that Ryōta had freshened up, he had to qualms about invading Senpai’s personal space.

"What's so funny," Yukio asked.

"Nothing," Ryōta said smiling like a lovestruck fool.

Kasamatsu had stubble on his chin and guck in his eyes and an unflattering case of bedhead and his breath was horrible, but Ryōta couldn't help but smile even wider.

Despite Yukio's terrible breath, Kise kissed him. The blond felt confident with his own minty mouth.

Senpai looked perplexed by the blond's behavior. Ryōta honestly couldn't get enough of the man in this iteration, all sleep rumpled and thoroughly adorable.

Kise's heart soared. He wanted to wake up like this every morning. He was content and everything seemed perfect. The way things should've been between them all those years ago.

"I wish," the blond said wistfully, tracing a finger along the univeristy logo on that firm chest, "I wish, we had gotten together in high school --"

"Yuki- _ow_ ," Ryōta said, rubbing his noggin.

"What the hell, idiot," Senpai said, looking very irritated at Ryōta. "I've got kids, you know."

"Yeah, so --"

"So. Don't think for a second I'll ever regret having them."

"Oh," suddenly the idiocy of his comment dawned on Ryōta.

"Sorry, Senpai," he said apologetically. "That's not what I meant." Apparently Ryōta was suffering from a severe case of foot-in-mouth disease.

Ryōta really wanted Senpai to know he was not an idiot, but so far the evidence was stacking up against him.

But before Kise could get too down on himself, Senpai pulled him into his arms and the blond went willingly.

"I'm also glad," he said against Ryōta's head. "That I got a second chance with you."

###

Several weeks passed and Ryōta was spending the night at Senpai’s again. By now, he'd done it a handful of times.

This time, they were making out furiously on Senpai's futon. And _oh my_ , Ryōta still couldn't believe what an amazing kisser Senpai was. Had he been missing out on this this whole time?

Senpai kissed Ryōta hard, like he knew what he wanted and he wasn't afraid to take it.

Ryōta had Senpai's intrepid tongue in his mouth and yet despite the intensity of the kiss, Senpai's hands had yet to stray.

Yukio-senpai's hands remained planted firmly on the back of Ryōta's neck. And while Ryōta appreciated the support, appreciated the way Senpai's blunt fingernails dug into the back of his skull with a possessive yearning Yukio hadn't yet expressed in words, Ryōta need more. He needed so much more than red hot kisses.

"You know, Senpai," he said in between long passionate kisses. "You're allowed to touch me," he said.

And in response to those words, Yukio-senpai made a strangled noise in the back of his throat that Ryōta very much wanted to hear again.

But instead of taking the very open invitation, Kasamatsu seemed to be stunned by the offer.

"Here," Ryōta said taking one of Senpai's hands and resting them on Ryōta's very interested lap.

And then it was as if someone lit a fire under Kasamatsu-senpai. The man unbuttoned Kise's designer jeans and shoved his hand where it absolutely belonged and then it was Ryōta's turn make guttural sounds. " _Oh fuck_ , Senpai. I'm going to --"

It was all embarrassingly over much too soon.

It had been too long, Ryōta had been so wound up, so overheated, so overeager. _Fuck, this was humiliating._

Ryōta hid his ruddy face in Senpai's shoulder.

Kasamatsu cautiously retrieved his hand from its denim resting place, discreetly wiped it off on his discarded t-shirt before wrapping his arms around his kohai.

Kise was about mumble an apology for the brevity, but Kasamatsu spoke first.

"That was so hot," he assured him. "You're so amazing. _That_ was so amazing," he said.

Ryōta pulled back ready to tell Senpai it was an accident. He wasn't normally like this. _And please Senpai, one more chance._

But Senpai ran his hands through blond hair, "I can't _wait_ to do that with you again," he told Ryōta and then he kissed him.

Lucky for both of them Senpai didn't have to wait all that long. What had honestly been a rare mishap for the blond, he more than compensated for with a short refractory period.

"Fuck, you're so pretty," Senpai said earnestly and Ryōta preened like a proud peacock knowing Senpai wasn't referring to his face.

The good thing about Senpai's apartment being so tiny was that Ryōta didn't have to reach very far to get what he wanted. Because Senpai had said 'soon' and Ryōta had committed those words to memory, he always came prepared. The blond pulled the still unused bottle of lubricant out of his leather weekender and several foil wrappers out of the orange box.

Ryōta was enjoying this private little moment. To think that Senpai would've murdered a high school Ryōta if the blond had stared at him as openly as he was doing now, to think they'd ever be doing this, or what they were about to do.

Senpai turned an adorable shade of pink. "Wait," he said. "I need to tell you something first."

"What?" Ryōta asked with a grimace. If Senpai told him he wanted to stop, of course he would stop. _Immediately_. But Ryōta couldn't promise he wasn't going to cry, because he wanted nothing more than to keep going.

Yukio looked everywhere, but at Ryōta. "I haven't done this before," he mumbled.

Kise's eyes went wide, he hadn't expected, that. "Oh my goodness, Senpai," he said surprised. "You're a virgin."

"Of course not, you idiot. I'm a father."

"You meant," Ryōta stopped to let it sink in. "I'm the first guy you've been with?"

"Well technically, I haven't been with you . . . _yet_." Kasamatsu pointed out, "But that's the general idea, yeah."

It was the promise of 'yet' that had more of Ryōta's blood heading south. He took hold of both of Kasamatsu's hands.

"Don't worry, Senpai," he assured him even as he could feel the pull of Kasamatsu's hands trying to get out of Kise's kung-fu grip. "I will be extra gentle with you."

"Knock it off, idiot," an annoyed Yukio said. "I already told you I'm not a maiden."

Even though Senpai assured him that he didn't need special treatment, Ryōta thought it would be easier if he played catcher this inning, so to speak. Truthfully, Ryōta was accustomed to this position and he'd be lying if he said he'd never fantasized about a flush-faced Senpai towering over him.

"Oh, don't worry about that, Senpai." Ryōta said cheerfully. He was determined to sooth his boyfriend's first time jitters.

"I want you to know that I've been with _lots_ of guys," Kise assured him.

Senpai frowned at Ryōta. "I don't want to hear _that_ coming from you, idiot," he said.

Kise didn't want Senpai to think he didn't know what he was doing or that he was entrusting himself in the hands of a novice. That mishap earlier had just been that, a mishap. Ryōta had logged in a lot of flight hours in the sack and said so.

"How is _that_ supposed to make me feel better, idiot?" Kasamatsu grumbled.

Ryōta knew a thing or two about taking it lying down. For starters, he knew he needed to prop his bottom up and so naturally, he reached for the nearest soft surface. He thought that since he was already in this position and since Senpai would probably need help with the prep work, he might as well give the man a show.

“What are you doing, idiot?” An irate Senpai asked a lasciviously reclining Ryōta.

"Getting myself ready for you Senpai," Ryōta said with studied innocence.

“Not on my son’s pillow, you're not.”

“Oops.” Ryōta quickly set aside the pillow stamped with brontosaurus riding bicycles. "Sorry, Senpai."

They'd had a few hiccups getting started, but when Yukio-senpai finally, _finally_ sunk in, it took Ryōta's breath away. Senpai may have been new to this, but he sure as hell knew how to move.

Ryōta was used to putting on a performance. He was used to being loud and attention grabbing in bed the way he was in the more public aspects of his life. But soon he realized he wasn't even pretending anymore.

 _Fuck_ , everything about this felt amazing. The feel of Senpai moving above him, moving inside him. The look of focused determination on Senpai's face as he gazed at Ryōta like he was the only thing that mattered. _It was fucking amazing._

This was nothing like the casual hookups Ryōta was used to.

And the best part was Senpai took his time with Ryōta, like he was cherishing this, committing it to memory.

Kasamatsu's kisses were heated, searing even, but there was also something else. Something very tender about them that Ryōta had yet to experience when he was like this, lying naked and exposed.

All of the urgency of earlier that evening was gone and Ryōta could relax and really enjoy it. He savored the feeling of Senpai's strong back muscles working beneath Ryōta's large mitts as the blond held on to Senpai for dear life.

"You're beautiful," Senpai told him and Ryōta thought he heard something else behind those words. "Look at you," he whispered to the blond. "I can't get enough of you."

When Kasamatsu started kissing his neck, Ryōta rolled his head to the side so he could accommodate Senpai's kisses. But when Senpai being palming Ryōta's flat chest, the blond stiffened.

Yukio immediately moved his hand elsewhere.

"Sorry," he muttered kissing Ryōta on the mouth. It was their first time together and they still had so much to learn about each other.

"I'll get it right next time," he said, digging his strong hands into Ryōta's thighs.

The blond welcomed the touch wrapping his legs around Senpai. Kise rested his heels on Senpai's backside and used them to push Senpai even further.

Ryōta could sense Senpai was close. For one thing, the expletives were flying.

"You feel, _fuck_ ," he told Ryōta. "Fucking, you feel fucking amazing."

Senpai was scorching hot with his nonsensical potty mouth, even as he struggled to sound coherent.

But the dead giveaway was that Yukio had picked up the pace, his calculated movements were growing erratic.

Ryōta was used to taking care of himself and so he reached in between them. Senpai knocked Ryōta's hand out of place. "Mine," he growled possessively and took over the task, making sure to take care of Ryōta first.

* * *

**AN1:** I know the title says **Ki** Kasa and not KasaKise. Don't worry, you'll get your turn ~~next chapter~~ in chapter 9. ;^) *Laughs evilly*

 **AN2:** Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who celebrate it. I really wanted to get this update done before then. Yay! Now I can enjoy the holiday.


	6. Turbulence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kise Ryōta takes a spill.

Kise Ryōta woke up to the sound of his home phone ringing persistently. Senpai had not spent the night and so Ryōta was alone in his bedroom, though still very much naked.

He knew who the caller was. Of course he did. He didn’t give this number out to just anyone. Everyone else called his cell, but there was one person who insisted on calling his landline. She was late. Truth be told, he’d expected this call weeks ago. She was clearly slacking off.

He looked at the digital alarm clock on his night stand. The time was about right. It was downright indecent to be up on a Sunday morning at this hour.

A week ago he wouldn’t have been home to take the call. A week ago, he would’ve been snuggling under the covers on Senpai’s futon. He wished he was there now. 

Ryōta begrudgingly picked up the receiver.

Every once in a while Ryōta would get a panicked, early-morning phone call from his mother. The older he got, the more frequent these calls became.

The subject matter of the call was always the same. She’d wail and bemoan the sad state of affairs –- namely, her son’s love life. _But you’re such a handsome boy_ , she’d insist as if all that was required to ensure a happily-ever-after was good looks. And maybe that had been his mother’s experience, but it certainly hadn’t been his.

Inevitably, she’d bring up Ryōta’s sisters. She’d note how they had both gotten married and given her grandchildren, while Ryōta had not. She’d remind him that all she’d wanted out of life was to see her only son settle down and start his own family. She’d note how time was ticking away, how she was like a dried up old leaf twisting on a branch, waiting for the cold winds of winter to come and take her. It was obvious which parent he’d inherited the theatrics from.

Ryōta’s mother would sigh deeply, like the weight of the world was on her thin shoulders. She’d tearfully observe that the way things were going Mochi would become a father before Ryōta did. At this point in the conversation, Ryōta would have to bite his tongue. It did no good to remind his mother that Mochi had gotten “fixed” years ago and more importantly Mochi was a _dog_.

It was his fault, really. He was the one who had cultivated his mother’s false hopes. He had no one to blame, but himself.

In years past, whenever he would get a call like this from his mother, he’d scroll through the contacts on his phone. He’d chat up a pretty face, conjure an instant first date, and casually bring her over to meet his folks a few weeks later. This would keep his mother placated for some time, at least until she would inevitably inquire about what’s-her-face and then Ryōta would have to fess up that they’d broken up. Because of course they didn’t last. It was a foregone conclusion. None of these relationships would ever work out. They were doomed from the start.

He’d dated oodles of women. All of them gorgeous, most of them models he’d met through the now only occasional photoshoot or through the people he knew who were still in the business, like his agent.

Aside from the models, he’d dated a few flight attendants. Until the last one he’d made the mistake of courting. Their three-day tryst had gone south faster than a nosedive and had landed the both of them in the H.R. conference room at the end of an especially long and hostile transpacific flight. Ryōta received a write-up, a highlighted copy of the employee handbook, and complimentary (compulsory) sensitivity classes.   

None of these women had held Ryōta’s attention for very long and truth be told, he was a shit boyfriend.

It was easy to fake interest. It all came so easily to him. Steady eye contact, a dazzling smile, a well-placed chortle at the end of a purportedly amusing story. He was, after all, a natural-born flirt and could imitate human behavior like no other. It also didn’t hurt that he was easy on the eyes.

Ryōta had seen _plenty_ of rom-coms. They were his favorite genre and the shelves near his TV stand were brimming with DVDs of them. It was just a matter of identifying romantic cues on screen and imitating them in real life. It worked like a charm.

What Ryōta couldn’t fake, what was damn near impossible to mimic was genuine affection for these women.

His longest relationship to date had been with a leggy Brazilian lingerie model. They had dated for months and he’d even brought her to Midorimacchi and Takaocchi’s wedding. It had been a volatile pairing to say the least. She was supremely jealous and constantly accusing Ryōta of flirting with other women when in reality he’d done nothing of the sort. It had been Takaocchi’s inebriated little sister who’d been flirting with _him_ at the reception, but his then-girlfriend didn’t see it that way. She broke up with him on the plane ride home in what was surely the longest, most dreadful passenger flight of his life.

He got his mother off the phone by telling her he had to get ready for work. That wasn’t exactly true. While he was on the schedule today, his flight wasn’t till later that evening.

###

He’d been so rattled by his mother’s phone call that he was still thinking about it when he got in the shower. Although he’d rushed her off the phone, her words still lingered.

He and his mother had gone through this whole song and dance routine for years now. Ever since he’d moved out of the house, she’d wanted to see her youngest settled down. The difference now was that Ryōta was actually in a relationship, one that meant a great deal to him and one he somehow hadn’t been able to bring up despite his love life being the sole topic of their phone conversation.

He wanted to tell his mother about Kasamatsu-senpai, really he did. It just wasn’t the right time. That sounded false even in Ryōta’s own head. The truth was he was a fucking coward.

Kise Ryōta liked to live his life openly. _Correction_. Kise Ryōta liked to live _certain parts_ of his life openly.

He didn’t particularly like keeping secrets. He wasn’t Akashicchi who liked to encourage this aura of mystery around himself.

Ryōta didn’t know how or when it happened, but at some point in his life he’d sort of just forgotten to maybe dispel some assumptions people made about his preferences. At some point in his life he’d sort of forgotten to tell people that he wasn’t straight, exactly.

He wasn’t conflicted the way he’d been in college. Back in college he’d needed copious amounts of liquid courage to switch over from flirting with the girls to flirting with the boys. He’d brought plenty of men home, engaged in many a drunken one-night-stands, but he’d never been in a relationship with another man, until now.

He didn’t think he was bi, like Takaocchi, either. Ryōta was just very good at faking it. And he’d been doing it for so long that he had sort of painted himself into a box and suddenly he was at the cusp of his thirties (practically still in his twenties, Ryōta tried to lessen the blow – his thirtieth birthday had been a sobfest) and still very much in the closet.

And maybe this was all his sisters’ fault for dressing him up in frilly clothes as a child, but he’d always liked other boys.

It had been Aominecchi who’d first caught his eye and not just for the power forward’s impressive on-the-court acrobatic feats. He was the one who’d inspired Ryōta to pick up a basketball. Ryōta would watch the other boy practice and realized he couldn’t easily copy Aominecchi’s style. For a time, the two of them grew close playing one-on-one every day after school. Unfortunately Aominecchi was straight as a wooden plank and as perceptive as one too. Even at that age, the power forward had been obsessed with boobs, something Ryōta definitely didn’t have and had no interest in acquiring, though he was forced to feign interest when Aominecchi unabashedly shared his unsavory adult reading material with his new friend.   

After Aominecchi, came Kurokocchi. His first love had been Kurokocchi, Ryōta was sure of it. For a time he’d been damn near obsessed with the blue haired imp. Back in middle school, Ryōta had been so infatuated with Kurokocchi that he would trail after him like a love sick puppy and would talk about his not-so-visible classmate incessantly. Back then Momocchi had been Ryōta’s biggest romantic rival. Of course, they’d both had a snowball’s chance in hell of having Kurokocchi return either of their affections, though Momocchi definitely had a shot with Aominecchi and years later she’d happily married the big dope.

Ryōta had been downright despondent when Kurokocchi had refused to go with him to Kaijō. But then he’d met Senpai. It had not been love at first sight. Truthfully, neither one of them had made a good first impression on the other -- Ryōta had come off as a tacky showoff in Senpai’s eyes and Senpai had seemed like a cranky, knee-socked old man to Ryōta –- but that all changed when they started playing together. Ryōta learned to respect his seniors in a way he’d never done before and learned to admire his captain for his hard work and commitment to the team. By the time Senpai retired from the sport, Ryōta had also fallen in love with him.  

He wasn’t afraid of coming out to his friends per se. They’d hardly bat an eyelash. After all, three-fifths of the Kiseki no Sedai were in same-sex relationships. Midorimacchi had gone to great lengths to actually marry his partner and Ryōta had his suspicions about Akashicchi’s love life, though the point guard would probably murder Ryōta with a pair of scissors in his sleep if he voiced them aloud.

Takaocchi was the one who’d arranged the reunion with Senpai in the first place. Takaocchi wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t have a pretty strong inkling where Ryōta’s interests lie.

But this thing with Senpai was something else. It was still so very new and so very precious to him that Ryōta didn’t want to share it with anyone. At least not yet.

He’d tell his friends. Of course he would. And eventually he’d have to tell his family. He wasn’t looking forward to that part at all. But he knew that he was going to have to do it, if he was going to have a normal, adult relationship with Senpai. He’d have to introduce Senpai to his family. And incidentally, he’d have to come out of that great big closet he’d constructed for himself his entire life.

_Oh, his sisters were going to have a field day._

###

Ryōta returned to Tokyo towards the end of the week. He texted Senpai as he boarded the train that would take him from the airport into the city.

He knew that Senpai and his ex-wife sometimes traded weekends and frankly he’d forgotten whose turn it was with the kids. With any luck, Ryōta could skip his usual stop and head straight to Yokohama.   

Senpai’s place was much too small for Ryōta to leave anything behind. For one thing, the kids would definitely find it. He had almost everything he needed in the carryon bag he’d taken to work, anyway. He had enough clothes and toiletries to last him a few days. All he needed was to stop at the laundromat. He and Senpai could go there together. Maybe order takeout and eat at one of the plastic folding tables they had there. They’d done it before.

There were only two things he didn’t have in his carryon bag, but he could easily pick those up at a drug store (and he _definitely_ didn’t need Senpai’s kids finding those).  A stray sock could easily be explained away -- a box of prophylactics and a bottle of lubricant, not so much.

 _Do you have the kids this weekend?_ (˘ʃƪ˘) He asked.

The response he got back was instantaneous.  _I have the kids every weekend, Kise. They live with us. Now, who were you trying to text at this hour? Was it a booty call? Tell Kazu everything. o(^◇^)o_

Ryōta groaned. _Shit._ He’d accidently texted Takaocchi instead.

 _Sorry_ , he text back. _I meant to text my sister_. Takaocchi must’ve gotten distracted by Midorimacchi because the hawkeye didn’t text back to tease Ryōta about the transparent lie.    

He resent the text to its intended recipient and was more than pleased with the compromise.

_The kids have a birthday party on Saturday. I’m picking them up then. Think you can be out of here by noon?_

That gave him tonight and all of Saturday morning to spend with Senpai. Heck yes!

 _Aye, aye Captain._ _ヽ_ _( ˘ω˘ )_ _ゝ_

_Knock it off, idiot._

Ryōta smiled at his screen like a dope. He was so besotted with this man.

###

Senpai greeted Ryōta with a warm smile. Ryōta didn’t even have to knock because Senpai was standing just outside of his apartment waiting for him to arrive.

As soon as Senpai closed the front door, Ryōta pounced on the man. He was so thankful he’d stopped at the drugstore on his way to Senpai’s place because now that he was here, now that Yukio-senpai had his hands possessively gripping Ryōta’s waist, he had no intention of leaving his boyfriend’s apartment.

To Ryōta’s surprise, his torrent of kisses were matched by Senpai’s lips. “I missed you,” Kasamatsu-san said to him as they both panted for breath.

Ryōta smiled beautifully. He felt like his heart was going to burst. He was used to coming home from work to an empty apartment in Shibuya. Coming home to Senpai was so much more than he’d ever envisioned.

“And this,” Senpai said in between kisses as he tugged the captain’s hat Ryōta was carrying in his hand, “is incredibly sexy,” he said, referring to Ryōta’s black captain’s uniform. Kasamatsu-senpai proceeded to remove Ryōta’s work ensemble. Senpai unbuttoned the double breasted suit jacket. Ryōta tried to help Senpai only to have his hand slapped away. “No,” Senpai nipped at Ryōta playfully. “You don’t get to help. This is _my_ fantasy, not yours,” he said, as he proceeded to undo all the gold buttons.

That was where Senpai was wrong, because being ravished by Senpai was definitely Ryōta’s fantasy.

“No earring today?” Senpai asked as he sucked on Ryōta’s left earlobe.

“It’s against company policy,” Ryōta explained.

“Fools,” Kasamatsu whispered and the proximity of his hot breath to Ryōta’s overly sensitive ear made the blond shiver with anticipation.

Senpai pulled Ryōta by the company issued tie with the red crane logo and it took little to persuade Ryōta to sit down on the futon. Senpai paused only to pick up the temporarily forgotten hat off the floor and place it on Ryōta’s pretty blond head.

Kasamatsu joined his boyfriend on the futon, unbuttoning most of the buttons on Ryōta’s white shirt as he kissed Ryōta’s neck and jaw, before unbuckling Ryōta’s belt and making just enough space in Ryōta’s pants. He then pressed open-mouthed kisses down Ryōta’s firm chest and stomach before swallowing him whole.

Ryōta did not have the best track record when it came to Kasamatsu-san doing this. “Senpai,” he said nervously. “If you keep doing that, I,” he caught his breath. “I don’t think I’m gonna lassssst,” he hissed.

“You don’t have to last, idiot. That’s my job.”

The following day at noon, Ryōta wore a crumpled up pilot’s uniform on his walk of shame to the train station, pulling along a carryon filled with still dirty laundry and garnering the disapproving looks of fellow commuters. He and Senpai never did make it to the laundromat. Not that Ryōta was complaining.

###

Ryōta was at home wearing cute workout clothes. He had every intention of running on his treadmill. They’d agreed to meet up tonight after Senpai finished work. In anticipation of what would surely be another deep-fried and battered train station meal, Ryōta was going to get his workout out of the way now.   

It was Monday afternoon and Ryōta hadn’t seen his boyfriend since Saturday. Even though it had been Senpai’s turn with the kids, Ryōta felt like he’d cheated a bit having gotten to see Senpai for the first part of the weekend when the kids were at a friend’s birthday party.

Senpai had not brought up the issue yet. But Ryōta knew he would eventually meet his boyfriend’s kids and he was more than okay with that, even if he was a little nervous about the actual meeting. He knew how important the boys were to Senpai and he wanted to get off on the right foot even if he’d made a terrible first impression on the boys’ father all those years ago. Ryōta was confident in his abilities as a charmer. He had a slew of nieces and nephews who adored him and Midorimacchi and Takaocchi’s kids seemed to like him just fine. How hard could it be?

Ryōta was warming up on the treadmill while shuffling through the extensive collection of music he had downloaded on his phone. He was in search of the perfect gym playlist when it occurred to him that he should take a selfie and send it to Senpai.

Ryōta held his hand out, looked up, and smiled for the camera. And then he lost his footing and he took a tumble.

He landed on his back on the running area, before the treadmill spit him out onto the floor.

 _Fuck._ He’d hurt his back. _Fuck._ He was in a lot of pain.

He’d played sports. He was no stranger to injuries, but this was making his nauseous.

He looked for his phone, careful to only move his neck because moving his lower back hurt like the dickens. It was behind him. He took a deep breath steeling himself for what would surely be a painful maneuver. He lifted his arm over his head and blindly felt for the mobile. He knew he didn’t want to do this twice so he worked through the pain extending his fingers until they came in contact with the plastic phone case.

Once he had secured his phone in his hand, he dialed out.

He’d already ruled out calling Senpai. It was one thing to send his boyfriend a quick selfie at work, it was quite another to ask him to leave his job to come pick up Ryōta, literally.

He also ruled out immediate family members. They lived too far. His father would bring Ryōta’s mother who’d surely be hysterical and if he called his sisters they would point and laugh and post pictures of him on social media with the hashtag #IdiotLittleBrother. Ryōta was speaking from experience. For years, his oldest sister’s icon was of a four-year-old-Ryōta’s crying face.  

There was only one person he knew who wasn’t at work at this hour. He had Takaocchi’s number on speed dial.   

The hawkeye let himself in using his spare key and picked Ryōta up off the floor. He turned off the treadmill, helped Ryōta out of his gym clothes, and helped him take a hot bath. The scalding hot water did wonders for his abused back muscles though he was still in a lot of pain.

Takaocchi even ordered Korean takeout. It would’ve been a nice time between friends but for two very important factors. The first was that Ryōta was in considerable pain. The heating pad and the over-the-counter painkillers Takaocchi had bought him from the pharmacy were not doing the trick. Takaocchi shared a bed with a licensed physician, you’d think he would’ve been able to score Ryōta the good stuff. The other factor was that Ryōta did not want his friend to run into his boyfriend who was coming over after work later.

Ryōta finally got rid of Takaocchi by assuring him that his sister was coming over to take care of him. That and several irate texts from Takaocchi’s husband persuaded the hawkeye that he needed to go home.

At Ryōta’s request, the hawkeye left the front door unlocked so Ryōta’s “sister” could let herself in. Ryōta lived in a secure building with a doorman on the ground floor. He wasn’t really worried about safety.

Half an hour later, Senpai arrived to find the door unlocked and Ryōta already tucked in bed.

“Idiot, you should’ve have called me. I would’ve come straight away,” a concerned Senpai said as he brushed Ryōta’s blond bangs off his forehead.

That was precisely why Ryōta had decided _not_ to call him. In fact, he’d only texted him to meet up at the apartment instead of the train station when he was sure that Senpai was packing up for the day. 

“There’s some takeout in the fridge,” Ryōta offered. The hawkeye had eaten all the kimchi, but there were still some short ribs left. Takaocchi had ordered too much food for two people and Ryōta hadn’t had much of an appetite to begin with.

Ryōta knew he was not going to be good company for Senpai tonight. He could barely move and he was in a lot of pain.

“You can leave the plate in the sink when you’re done,” he called out to Senpai. Ryōta would wash it tomorrow morning. At least, he hoped he’d be able to get out of bed tomorrow morning.

Just then Kasamatsu walked back into the bedroom, his thick eyebrows furrowed in irritation. “I’m not leaving you like this idiot. I’m spending the night.”

Ryōta hesitated. On any other night, he would’ve been thrilled to have Kasamatsu-san sleep over. In fact, Ryōta had been lobbying for that even before they had officially started dating, but surely Senpai understood that Ryōta wasn’t going to be much fun tonight.

 “Senpai,” he said apologetically, “I can’t do anything with you –-”

“Do you have a laundry room?” Yukio-senpai asked.

Ryōta nodded before remembering he should keep all his responses verbal until his back healed, “It’s right off the kitchen.” 

“I’ll need to borrow a tie and something to sleep in,” Senpai said, like he was planning a military expedition. “I’ll have to wear this suit again tomorrow, but I can launder all of my underclothes. So I should be good to go.”

“You don’t happen to have an extra toothbrush, do you?”

“No,” Ryōta said. He used to keep spare toothbrushes, back when he was still single. He’d thrown away the last one months ago after his last one-night-stand had left the apartment. “But you can borrow mine,” he offered.

Kasamatsu scrunched up his nose at the suggestion. It was funny how Senpai could have his mouth all up in Ryōta’s business, like he’d done the other day, but drew the line at sharing a toothbrush. “I’ll get one from the konbini down the block. Need anything?”

“More painkillers,” Ryōta said hopefully, even though he knew Senpai wouldn’t be able to score the good stuff either.

Senpai’s lips tightened as his pretty blue eyes assessed Ryōta. “Maybe you should see a doctor,” he suggested. “Do you want me to take you to one tomorrow?”

“No!” Ryōta insisted. “I’ll be fine. If anything, I’ll just get Midorimacchi to pop over,” he said as if Midorimacchi would be _delighted_ to just come over and pay him a house call. He did not want to cause Senpai any more trouble than he already had.

It was bad enough, he wouldn’t be able to put out tonight --

“Look,” Senpai said, interrupting Ryōta’s thought process. “I don’t know who you dated in the past, but I don’t expect that from you every time we see each other. Especially if you’re hurt, but even if you’re fine and just don’t feel like it. That’s okay too. I like you for you,” Yukio-senpai said suddenly studying the seigaiha pattern on Ryōta’s navy blue duvet. “Sex is great and all, but that’s not why I’m with you,” he said. And before he could embarrass either of them further by talking so bluntly about things that only came up between them in the heat of the moment, Senpai headed out to the convenience store to pick up an extra toothbrush.    

###

“Hey Kise,” Senpai said when he very carefully climbed into his boyfriend’s bed and slipped beneath the covers, making sure not to jostle the mattress so as not to aggravate Ryōta’s lower back. Senpai had offered to sleep in the spare bedroom, but Ryōta wouldn’t hear of it.

Senpai looked very cute in his borrowed, oversized t-shirt. Ryōta wished he wasn’t so tired so he could tease him about it when Yukio-san had crawled into bed. But as it was, the blond could barely keep his eyes open.

“Tomorrow’s Tuesday,” Kasamatsu said, after he’d turned off the light.

“Okay.” Ryōta wasn’t scheduled to work until later that week anyway and he could always call in sick. This time he had a legitimate excuse.

“I have some place I need to be on Tuesday nights.”

Senpai had mentioned this to Ryōta sometime ago, but hadn’t told Ryōta why.

“So, if you need me to come over tomorrow night, I will, but it’s going to be late, okay?”

Ryōta wanted to ask Senpai what was so important that he had somewhere to be every Tuesday night, but he was so tired he fell asleep mid-thought.

* * *

**AN:** It seems like I only get to update this fic on holidays. Merry x-mas to those who celebrate. I thought I was going to get **Ki** Kasa in this chapter, but I was wrong, I think we need about two more updates before this turns into actual KiKasa. For now enjoy the KasaKise. I promise the switch is "integral" to the story, I just need to lay the ground work in the next few chapters. As always, thanks for reading my fic. XD


	7. Whining and Dining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Would you like some miso soup to go with that guacamole?"

After spending most of the week in bed and having a begrudging Midorimacchi pay him an at home doctor's visit -- it was like Takaocchi had twisted his husband’s arm or something -- Ryōta was as good as new. 

By the time the weekend rolled around, Ryōta had recovered from his fall. He'd even gone to lunch with his friends at a restaurant in Ginza on Saturday where he'd taken the opportunity to tell Takaocchi and Kurokocchi about Senpai. 

The nice thing about having finally come out and told his friends that he was in a relationship was that he could confide in them now and seek their advice. 

Ryōta was out shopping with a newly engaged Kurokocchi. Kagamicchi had popped the question only recently and the simple band on Kurokocchi’s left ring finger was so shiny and new.

Ryōta was over the moon for his friends. Although Ryōta had had a middle school crush on Kurokocchi, Kurokocchi had found his light in high school. He and Kagamicchi had been inseparable at Seirin and Kurokocchi had moved into Kagamicchi’s apartment after graduation.

Kurokocchi was an elementary school teacher and so he was done with work around four. Ryōta was not scheduled to return to work until the following week and so he had persuaded Kurokocchi to join him in a little retail therapy.

Ryōta suspected Kagamicchi was spending the night at the fire station because Kurokocchi, to his surprise, had agreed to meet him at the mall, provided that it was the one near Kurokocchi’s school. Ryōta had agreed to the compromise because more than anything he wanted companionship.

Even though Kurokocchi registered a very faint presence and Ryōta was the type of person who could and did stop traffic with his supremely good looks, Ryōta basked in Kurokocchi’s company.

Ryōta was no longer hopelessly in love with Kurokocchi like he had been when he was younger, but he still enjoyed his friend’s company. Particularly when it came to shopping because Kurokocchi was very blunt and the kind of friend who would speak up if Ryōta picked up an unflattering garment. Of course, the idea of anything looking unflattering against Ryōta’s flawless skin was downright laughable.

They were in the men’s department of a designer store. Kurokocchi did not like to go into these stores because they were very expensive, but also because these stores always had doormen who would accidently close the door on Kurokocchi’s face. _Sorry_ , they’d say with a respectful bow. _I didn’t see you there._

Ryōta was trying on a long-sleeved button down shirt. It was a linen shirt that had been dyed in an ombré pattern with a gradual blending of blue hues. The shirt looked alright on the hanger, but when Ryōta tried it on in the fitting room, it looked so great on him he knew he had to have it. In fact, he not only purchased the blue shirt, but also wore it out of the store.

Their next stop was at a sporting goods store where they both browsed the sales rack for gym clothes.

They were sharing a changing room because the sales lady hadn’t seen Kuroko behind Ryōta and had only unlocked one of the changing rooms. They were both trying on t-shirts when something struck Ryōta as odd in the mirror. Ryōta thought of all the storybooks he'd been read to as a child and frowned.

"Kurokocchi," Ryōta cried out to the man with a shirt over his head. "I'm too beautiful to be a step-boyfriend."

Kurokocchi removed the t-shirt he’d tried on. It was much too large for him anyway, and put on the polo shirt he’d worn to school that day. "Kise-kun," he said quietly. "There's no such thing as a step-boyfriend. Besides, you haven't even met the kids yet. So right now, you're not a step anything."

###

Ryōta greeted his boyfriend with a kiss in the genkan of his Shibuya apartment. Ryōta liked how Senpai cupped his face whenever he kissed him. It made Ryōta feel very much wanted, like Senpai relished kissing him or something.

Yukio-san had just finished his meeting with a developer and to Ryōta’s delight he’d decided to head straight to Ryōta’s apartment instead of going back to the office. As a result he had his briefcase and his computer bag with him.

Ryōta took those out of Senpai’s hands along with the bag of take-out Senpai had brought with him. _Fried dumplings_ , _from the train station_ , Ryōta feigned happiness at the unhealthy meal Kasamatsu-san had brought them. It had gotten to the point where he was getting _too_ familiar with all the take-out containers from all the various eating establishments that dotted the train stations between his apartment and Senpai’s office. Ever since the treadmill incident, he’d been a little weary to get back on it. But he had started running in the park near his apartment again. It was too dark to get another run in now, but maybe he’d get up early and run twice as far tomorrow morning.

He took the briefcase and the computer bag, along with Senpai’s trench coat and gray suit jacket and placed them in the hall closet for safe keeping.

Ryōta himself had only just gotten home not less than ten minutes ago and had yet to put away his purchases.

“Oh wait,” Senpai said. “You forgot to take out the movie.” The movie was the eleventy-billionth installment of the never ending giant lizard franchise. Ryōta feigned enthusiasm over that the way he’d done over the fried dumplings.

Senpai rummaged through his computer bag until he pulled out the DVD with a crack on the plastic case. He noticed all the shopping bags in the hallway closet.

“You were busy today,” Yukio-san commented, flashing the blond a teasing smile. Ryōta had texted Senpai while he was out shopping with Kurokocchi, but he hadn’t told him about his friend’s engagement. He figured he should probably share the happy news with Senpai in person and maybe gauge his reaction.

It wasn’t that Ryōta wanted to get married anytime soon, or maybe at all. It was just that Senpai had gotten divorced not so very long ago and maybe he was one of those people who wouldn’t go through with a second marriage. It was much too soon to even think about things like that, but a part of Ryōta had a burning curiosity about his boyfriend’s views on marriage.

And then Ryōta remembered he hadn’t only bought stuff for himself. He walked over to the still open hall closet where Senpai was standing. Ryōta crouched down and pulled two of the shopping bags. “I also picked up a few things for the boys,” he said.

“ _The boys_ ,” Senpai repeated.

“Well I figured I should have _something_ on hand for when I meet them,” Ryōta explained as he pulled out a box containing a plastic toy dinosaur for Hiroshi. Kurokocchi helped Ryōta pick it out because it made a growling noise when you pushed on its sides. He’d also picked up a model airplane kit for Hajime because he’d noticed that Haji-chan liked to build things with his hands. The kit was for a slightly older age group, but it could be something Haji and his father could work on together.

“Kise,” Senpai began and sighed heavily. From his tone, it didn’t sound like it was going to be good news. It sounded like Senpai was picking his words very carefully. “. . . That’s really very sweet of you to pick out these gifts for the boys. And I can tell that you put a lot of thought into it, but --"

Ryōta could hear his own heartbeat pumping in his ears.

“I don’t think that meeting them would be a very good idea. It’s just that right now is not a good time for them. Is all, I’m trying to say.”

Ryōta could feel his face heating up. He felt a swoop of disappointment come over him and he had to blink back tears. He was such an idiot. Why had he thought that Senpai would want to introduce him to his kids.   

“I don’t get to meet any of them?” Ryōta asked, his voice ready to crack. “Not even the dog?” There was a chew toy and a raw hide pig’s ear for her too in one of the bags.

"Ah, Ghidorah lives with my ex-wife," Kasamatsu explained. “The dog only comes over when the boys do.”

Ryōta found himself staring at his own socked feet because he was so embarrassed he didn’t know how he was going to face Senpai. He felt like such a fool. He’d assumed so many things.

He wanted to play it off, pretend like it was a silly thing and really no big deal. But he couldn’t hide the disappointment on his face.

Kasamatsu placed his hand beneath Ryōta’s chin and forced the blond to look at him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s not you. I think you’re wonderful. I would love nothing more than to introduce you to them so you can see for yourself how great they are.” Kasamatsu-san smiled his crinkle-eyed smile at Ryōta, but for the first time Ryōta felt a twinge of sadness.

“It’s just that the boys have been through _a lot_. Especially this past year. Everything’s changed for them and I told you their mother’s getting remarried. They’ve had to adjust to so many things. I just don’t think that they’re ready for something like this right now. Okay?”

Ryōta nodded in agreement, but what choice did he have. It was a crushing blow. But if he thought of it from their perspective, he guessed what Senpai was saying made sense.

Senpai kissed the top of his pretty blond hair. “I promise,” he said. “As soon as they’re ready, I’ll bring them over to meet you.”

###

After a thoroughly unsatisfying meal of fried dumplings.  Senpai had started the movie. “You alright?” he’d asked several times and Ryōta would smile and assure him everything was just peachy.

Ryōta was too distracted to pay any attention to a movie he hadn’t wanted to watch in the first place. He was mortified at the thought of how he’d worked himself up over meeting the kids only to find out he wasn’t going to meet them anyway, he began to wonder how serious Senpai was about dating him in the first place.

Ryōta had thought about coming out to his own _family_ for Senpai. He’d been ready to call his parents and his sisters and bring Senpai to his parent’s house for dinner. The fact that he wasn’t meeting Senpai’s boys was a bit of an eye-opener for Ryōta. It made him gaze at the man sitting beside him on the couch with new eyes. Ryōta turned questioning eyes at Senpai, while Senpai remained enthralled in his movie, blissfully unaware of the inner turmoil that was churning within Ryōta.

Ryōta had older sisters. He knew when a man was head over heels in love with them, he’d wine and dine them, bring them flowers. They’d meet mom and dad and pat the top of Ryōta’s head. Ryōta had read his sisters’ diaries without their permission. He knew the guys they dated had bought them things mom and dad didn’t know about like jewelry or lingerie.

Senpai hadn’t done _any_ of those things. He hadn’t taken Ryōta to any fancy restaurants. There was that little French bistro Ryōta had casually brought up several times in conversation. And Senpai hadn’t sent flowers to Ryōta. He hadn’t given him gifts.

All they had was a slew a dinners across various trains stations, most of them take out, and a few ramen Styrofoam cups. Senpai hadn’t mentioned meeting mom and dad and Ryōta now knew he wasn’t going to meet the children, not even the dog. _Did Senpai even care about him, even a little bit?_

 _It was all over_ , Ryōta thought. This fairytale romance was over. Somehow he’d ruined it. He always ruined things.

“Hey, hey,” Senpai said, pausing the movie when he heard Ryōta sniffling. “Are you crying?”

Ryōta nodded.

“Don’t cry. It’s alright,” Senpai said in a very soothing voice, making Ryōta look up into a pair of concerned blue eyes. “I know it looks bad right now, but the monster wins at the end. He always does, I promise,” he said pointing to the television screen.

“KASAMATSU-SENPAI! You idiot!!” Ryōta wailed. “I’m not crying over your stupid movie.”

“Stupid movie?” Senpai repeated as if he had no idea that Ryōta could possibly be referring to the movie that had been suspended on the screen.

“That’s all we ever do!” Ryōta complained. "We watch movies at your apartment or at my apartment and we eat at train stations. You’ve never once taken me out to a nice restaurant. And that one time we were supposed to go to a jazz club you ended up working late and we _still_ ended up eating train station food. I am _sick_ of train station food. You don’t buy me gifts and you don’t bring flowers. Are we even really dating?”

“Look,” Kasamatsu said sharply, clearly Ryōta had pissed him off. “I’m a single father on a tight budget. Most of my paycheck goes to alimony and child support. I can't take you to the fancy restaurants you’re used to going to. I’m sorry. I’ve got college to fund and in a few years Hiro-chan’s going to need braces. That’s not going to be cheap,” he winced.

Senpai wasn’t kidding. Hiro-chan's two front teeth were growing in quite chipmunk-like, from what Ryōta could tell in the photos. “So if it’s a whirlwind romance you want, Kise Ryōta. I don’t think I’m the guy for you.”

“Senpai – ” Ryōta started to say immediately regretting having opened his big mouth in the first place, but Kasamatsu was already standing up.

“No,” he said. “Don’t answer me now. I want you to think about it. I want you to think real hard about what you really want. And what I can actually give you.”

Senpai must’ve been very angry with Ryōta because he left his beloved lizard movie behind.

Ryōta didn’t have any hope of falling asleep that night. He tossed and turned in his lonely bed. Until he finally got up, walked over to the couch, and finished the movie for lack of anything better to do.

And Senpai had been right the lizard did beat out all those bad guys in the end.

###

Ryōta was still on pins and needles the following morning. It had been more than twelve hours since they’d had a lover’s spat. And maybe he should’ve held his tongue, but Senpai wasn’t being fair to him either.

By the time the afternoon rolled around, he reached for his phone and called the one person he knew he could count on for solid relationship advice.

“Kasamatsu’s right,” Takaocchi said.

“What?” Ryōta asked, taken entirely by surprise. “But did you hear the part about how he’s never taken me to a fancy restaurant and he doesn’t want to introduce me to his kids.”

“The thing is,” Takaocchi was quiet on the other end of the line for a moment. “Having kids,” he told Ryōta, “changes  _everything_.”

“Yes, but –”

“You’re dating someone who’s a father. So naturally he’s got a different set of priorities than you do. He wants to protect his kids, I get that.” 

“Protect them from what? Me?” Ryōta asked incredulously.

“Think about it from their perspective. Like, let’s say you were twelve and your parents split, would you be eager to meet your dad’s new boyfriend?”

“Yes, but it’s _meeee_ ,” Ryōta pointed out.

“Priorities change when you become a parent,” Takaocchi told him. “Like, for the longest time Shin-chan and I were each other’s most important person. But then the kids came along and you know, if we’re in our bed in the middle of something and the baby starts crying on the baby monitor, we stop. One of us will go to the nursery and soothe him because he’s our priority now.

“And if Keiko-chan has a fever, then we won’t go to the theater that night and catch that Russian orchestra that Shin-chan really wanted to hear. That’s just the way things are now. Kasamatsu’s first priority are his kids. And they should be. And your first priority is your relationship with him because he’s your boyfriend and you don’t have any kids. I get that, I mean you’re already giving up half your weekends for him. So you’ve got to decide whether you’re okay with dating someone who can’t make you their most important person because they’ve already got that slot filled. And it’s not selfish of you to want to be wined and dined. But if that’s what you want. He’s basically told you he can’t give that to you. So you’ve got to figure out what’s really important to you and what’s not.

“Anyway, I gotta go. I gotta call a man about removing a chandelier before the kids wake up from their naps. Best of luck with everything, Kise. And no matter what you decide, I’ve got your back.”

###

By the time six o’clock rolled around, Ryōta broke down and sent the first text.

 _Hi._ He hit send before he could talk himself out of it.

Senpai never responded during the workday, but apparently fights were the exception. _I’m sorry about last night_ , he texted back.

 _Me too._ Ryōta wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for other than he wanted everything to go back to normal between them. _Are we going to be okay?_

Senpai waited a few moments before sending his text. _That’s entirely up to you._ And then he sent a follow up. _Did you think about what I said last night?_

Ryōta laughed at the screen. It was the only thing he’d been thinking about since Senpai left. _I have_ , he answered truthfully.

 _And?_ Senpai asked.

 _I want you._ Ryōta responded.  

_Is it okay if I come over tonight? After work?_

_Please do._

###

Kasamatsu barely had a chance to knock before Ryōta swung the front door open.

Yukio-san looked very handsome in his trench coat and his dark grey suit, even if he did have bags under his pretty blue eyes.

Ryōta hadn’t gotten much sleep either, but at least he’d had the opportunity to place cucumber slices over his eyelids for most of the day.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Yukio-san said. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. And these are for you,” he said bringing the arm he’d been keeping behind his back forward. Kasamatsu-san had been holding a bouquet of yellow carnations.

Ryōta smiled at the sweet gesture, taking the flowers from Senpai’s hand.

“I’m sorry they’re from the train station. I didn’t have time to get them from someplace nice like the florist.”

“They’re perfect, Senpai.” Ryōta said, already getting teary eyed. And even if they were a pitiful little bouquet of barely a dozen, Ryōta loved them because they meant that Senpai had listened to his complaints and was making an effort.

They paled in comparison to the frankly jaw-dropping bouquets of peonies Midorimacchi sometimes sent to Takaocchi from his Ginza florist. But Ryōta loved these flowers more because they were the ones that Senpai had bought for him.

“You were right about other stuff too,” Yukio said. “You deserve to be taken care of too. And I haven’t been doing a very good job of it.”

“Aww, Senpai. That’s really not necessary –-”

“No, I mean it, and no more monster movies. I’ll save those cinematic masterpieces for the people who truly appreciate them,” he said teasingly.

Ryōta smiled. “I’d better put these in water,” he said, referring to the flowers. “Why don’t you come in?”

“I better not,” Senpai said, adjusting the computer bag that was slung over his shoulder. “My meeting is at nine.”

“Meeting?”

Senpai grimaced. “It’s Tuesday night, so yeah, I gotta go to that. I just came by. I know we exchanged texts earlier, but I just wanted to make sure we’re okay.”

“Yeah,” Ryōta said. “I’m okay, if you’re okay.”

Yukio-san smiled. “I guess that means we’re okay then.”

“Hey, Senpai,” Ryōta said leaving the door open and walking towards the hall closet to pick up a gift bag. “Do you want to take these with you?” he asked, holding out the bag where he’d placed the gifts for the boys and the dog.

Kasamatsu put his palms up. “No. You’d better hold on to those for now. It’s not going to be any time soon, but you can bring them over when you meet the boys.”

Ryōta smiled at Senpai. He thought about what Senpai could give him and he thought about what he’d had so far. There wasn’t a contest.

“And Ryōta,” Senpai said. “Sorry about all that shit food I’ve been feeding you.” Kasamatsu rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. “It’s just that it's kind of hard to eat well when you don't have a kitchen."

"I have a kitchen," Ryōta reminded him. "A large one. It's bright and clean and you're welcome to use it anytime," he offered.

"Yeah?" Kasamatsu's face perked up at the prospect. 

"Absolutely! Senpai," Ryōta responded excitedly. "Although, we'll have to shop for groceries first. I'm afraid I don’t have any ingredients at home. I'm pretty hopeless when it comes to making food," Ryōta said truthfully. 

Kasamatsu looked up at him with a quirky, lopsided grin. There was a teasing gleam in Senpai's eye that made Kise's heart flutter. "Oh, I don't know about that," Yukio said. "You do make a mean guacamole."

Ryōta's eyes went wide and then he pouted. "Senpai's being meeeean," he whined. 

Yukio-senpai chuckled. "No, I'm not," he said smiling at the blond fondly. "It's a compliment."

Kasamatsu cleared his throat. “I really have to get going now. But how about I come over Friday after work and cook for you? I’ll bring flowers.”

“Alright,” Ryōta agreed. He couldn’t resist adding a little fuel to the fire, “and an overnight bag,” he suggested.  

Kasamatsu smiled. He reached up to give Ryōta a quick peck goodbye on the lips.

###

There was something blissfully domestic about shopping for groceries with Senpai. Truthfully, Ryōta had never been happier to be at that small market near his apartment. It wasn't his first time there. The blond would pop in regularly for mineral water and ingredients for his . . .  _face_  mask.

But being there with Senpai made the place seem  _magical_  somehow. He wanted everyone there from the customers to the stock boys, to the grocer, to the cashiers to know that Kise Ryōta was there with his  _boyfriend_. And that they were there to buy food because Senpai was going to cook for Ryōta and Ryōta was going to sit at the island in his kitchen admiring Senpai's cute butt as he busied himself in front of the seldom-used stove.    

"Where can we find the whipping cream?" Senpai asked a daydreaming Ryōta. Thick eyebrows furrowed at the recipe on the screen of his cell phone and Ryōta thought it was cute that Senpai was struggling to read the characters without his reading glasses. 

Ryōta shrugged. Truthfully, he didn't even know what whipping cream was. 

"Isn't this your market?" 

"I only know where the vegetables and the mineral water are kept." 

"Damn brat," Senpai said and then he went to go flag down the grocer.

###

Ryōta was leaning over the island counter top in his large kitchen and smiling like a love struck fool at the apron-clad man boiling noodles in front of the stove. 

"When did you learn how to cook, Senpai?" he asked, an already wide grin becoming even wider. “In college?”

"Nah, I used to take care of my little brothers after school. Both our parents worked so I'd make dinner for 'em. Mostly simple stuff." He turned to look at Ryōta. "I make a mean nikujaga."

"Mmm," Ryōta said. "I'd love to try it."

"Sure. I'll make it for you next time."

 _Next time_ , Ryōta thought. The words rang pleasantly in his ear. _What could be better than this?_  

###

Not only had Senpai made a delicious dinner for Ryōta that night (who needed reservations to a great little French bistro when Ryōta could personally give his compliments to the chef, right there on his knees and in the privacy of his own living room), but he also brought him breakfast in bed the following morning.  

Ryōta sat up on his bed as Senpai brought over a large tray (a tray that had previously held magazines on Ryōta's coffee table and had been repurposed by Yukio that morning), and set it on Ryōta's lap.  

"You did all this for me?" the blond asked. 

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day," Kasamatsu informed him, clearly not answering the question. 

Ryōta smiled beautifully. He’d already snuck off to the bathroom. The copycat had answered the call of nature, brushed his pearly whites, combed his glossy blond hair and expertly applied eyeliner, before crawling back into bed. "No one has ever made me breakfast in bed," a smitten Ryōta informed a blushing Senpai. 

"Well,  _someone_  has to start making sure you're eating right." Kasamatsu told him. Yukio took the lid off the miso soup and stirred it with a spoon, making sure it was not too hot for Ryōta.

Ryōta took the tray off his lap and set it on what he hoped would become Yukio's side of the bed. He planted a fresh, minty kiss on Yukio's lips. "Mmm," he said, moaning a bit. And Senpai couldn't help himself. He kissed the blond hard. And suddenly Kasamatsu was on his back and Ryōta was on top of him and neither one of them had breakfast on their mind.

They were kissing and panting and grinding against each other and there was a lot of touching and petting and groping and then suddenly Ryōta felt something very wet against his thigh.

" _Oh_  Senpai," he said.

"Huh?" A confused, sex-addled Kasamatsu didn't know what to make of the sudden halt in their progress. "W-why are we stopping?" he asked a bit desperately. It was a tone that could've easily been accompanied with the words,  _have you lost your mind?_

"It's okay, Senpai."

"What's okay?" Yukio asked trying to restrain himself from rubbing up against Ryōta's thigh and doing a halfhearted job at that. "What are you talking about?"

"You got ahead of yourself. And it's okay."

"What is?"

"It's not a big deal. It happens to every man." 

"What does?" 

"You popped the champagne cork too early," Ryōta explained, rubbing Senpai's arm sympathetically and trying to be supportive.

"Huh?" Yukio asked.

"You had a manly misfire. Your ship came in too early," Ryōta was trying to be polite about it, but it appeared from the clueless look on Senpai's face he needed Ryōta to be blunt with him. Ryōta put on his most compassionate face, "Premature ejac--" 

" _WHA_ _T?!!_ " 

"I want you to know that it's okay, Senpai. I don't mind in the slightest. We can always try again later. When you're ready."    

A thoroughly annoyed Kasamatsu looked down between them. "That wasn't me, you idiot. That was the miso soup you spilled on the duvet." 

"Oh," Ryōta said and felt the tips of his ears burn in embarrassment.

"I'll show you stamina, you damn brat," Senpai said as he kissed the man. He took hold of Ryōta until the blond was a whimpering, begging mess.

"Please Senpai, " Ryōta pleaded. "I can't hold out anymore. I'm going to --"

"Damn straight, you are," Yukio said in his authoritative captain's voice, before finally,  _finally_  taking mercy on his mewling wreck of a boyfriend. 

And then while being the big spoon to a thoroughly satiated Ryōta and because he couldn't resist, Yukio leaned over the blond's ear and asked, "would you like some miso soup to go with that guacamole?"

* * *

**AN:** Yay! Another chapter update. I'm so happy I was able to find the time to buckle down and write more of this fic. I've mapped it out and I think that probably it will be about eleven chapters total. I wanted to write a realistic KiKasa fic where not everything is perfect and they have bumps along the way. I think it goes without saying that these two would have many bedroom mishaps and other misunderstandings. Hope you're enjoying the story so far. Please let me know what you think. Thanks!  


	8. Two Weddings and A Funnel Cake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryōta unexpectedly meets the other bubbly blond in Senpai's life.

Senpai’s ex-wife had scheduled her wedding on a weekend when it was Senpai’s turn with the children. 

And while Ghidorah -- faithful, loving Ghidorah -- went home to her master as planned, the boys were at their mother's nuptials.

Ryōta could attest with absolute certainty that Ghidorah was a sweetheart and a good looking gal. Her coat was shiny and well-kept and she had the most adorable, melt-your-heart-away brown eyes.

She eagerly peppered Ryōta with kisses upon encountering him at the front door of Senpai's apartment. It was the first time the bubbly blond in Senpai's life met the _other_  bubbly blond in Senpai's life.

"She's not much of a guard dog," Kasamatsu joked. And that may have been true, but she was very obedient, Ryōta noted. One tug on her leash and she sat down at her master’s feet. 

"Ready to go?" Senpai asked, keys in hand. Ryōta noticed that his boyfriend had already put on his wool pea coat and wore a matching gray skull cap.

The blond had brought an overnight bag and set the leather weekender down on the step preceding the genkan before heading out.

The wedding was in Osaka, where the bride was from, and Senpai would be taking the bullet train out of the city tomorrow to pick up the boys from their maternal grandmother’s house and bring them home.

In the meantime, Ryōta would be spending the night in Yukio-san’s tiny apartment before they parted ways at Tokyo Station the following morning.  

###

They made their way to the park near Senpai’s apartment. Incidentally, the park was also near Senpai’s parents’ house, Ryōta realized as they strolled through what had once been familiar streets.

Ryōta held the leash and the dog tried to lead the way.

Although the two of them took turns holding the leash, Ghidorah was under no illusions as to who was the alpha male in this pack and while she behaved beautifully when Senpai held her leash, the minute Ryōta took over she began trying to lead _him_ instead. Ghidorah -- faithful, loving Ghidorah -- knew a pushover when she saw one.

As they turned the corner onto the next block, Ghidorah started tugging and whimpering and trying to get away from Ryōta in earnest. 

Senpai grabbed the leash from Kise and Ghidorah finally settled down. She got excited again when they passed a two-story house with a pitched roof. It was a lovely house with a small fence and stone steps that led to the front entrance. There was a large ume tree out front with a tire swing tied to one of its thick branches.

"She seems to _really_ like that house," Ryōta commented. 

"That's because she lives there."

"Huh?"

"That's the house we used to live in." 

"The one you designed?" Ryōta asked.

"That's the one." Yukio said looking fondly at the pretty house.

"What happened to it?"

"My ex-wife got it in the divorce. She lives there with the kids now." The dog whined at the statement. "And Ghidorah, too," Kasamatsu added, petting the golden retriever apologetically for having forgotten to include her.

"What's going to happen to it?" Ryōta asked. "To the house. Now that she's getting remarried." 

"Her new husband will be moving in, of course." 

Ryōta made a face like he’d bitten into something Momocchi had cooked. He did not like the idea of a strange man moving into the house Senpai had built for his family.

Senpai must have picked up on Ryōta's displeasure because he said, "That's alright. I don't mind at all. In fact, the three of us,” he said referring to the adults, “discussed it and we decided it didn't make sense to uproot the boys. Make them go to new schools. They've had enough change already."

Ryōta thought about how close this house was to Senpai's parents' house and of course it made sense that Senpai and his then wife would've bought a plot of land to be near Senpai's family. 

And then Ryōta thought about how this house was within walking distance to Senpai's tiny apartment. It only made sense that Senpai would want to live near his kids and Ryōta wondered, but he didn't ask, if it was difficult for Senpai to live nearby, near the house he’d built, near the place where he was once happy.

He wondered if it was tough on Senpai to be so close to the boys, but still only see them every other weekend. 

"It's not forever," Kasamatsu said, interrupting Ryōta's thoughts. "Once Hiro-chan goes off to college, she's supposed to either sell it or buy my share of it. It's part of the divorce settlement. I don't really care what she does with it. It's not my home anymore."

Ryōta looked at the house one more time as they passed it, feeling inexplicably sad.

###

They purchased funnel cakes from a street vendor whose cart was stationed just outside the gates. They took a few bites of the sugary confection before entering the park.

"Are you alright, Senpai?" Ryōta asked as they resumed walking. The wedding was tonight and the blond was feeling anxious about it.

Kasamatsu shrugged, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Ryōta could think of a million reasons why his boyfriend would have mixed feelings about the woman he’d once shared a life with tying the knot with another man, but he didn’t voice them. He remained quiet, feeling jittery as his stomach flip-flopped unpleasantly. He decided to blame it on all the sugar he’d eaten so far. 

"Sit," Senpai said when they came to a grassy knoll. 

The two blonds immediately sat down.

Kasamatsu raised an amused, thick eyebrow at Ryōta, "What are you doing?" he asked. 

"You said to sit, Senpai, so I sat," the blond said matter-of-factly. 

"I don’t remember you being this obedient in high school,” Kasamatsu remarked. “Besides, I was talking to the dog."

"Oh," an embarrassed Ryōta ran a hand through his blond hair.

"Stand up," Senpai said. Ryōta and Ghidorah stood up in unison.

"Geez," Kasamatsu chuckled. "It's like there's _two_ of you."

Having grown tired of giving orders and evidently deciding this was as good a place as any to share a snack, Yukio-senpai sat down and the rest of his pack sat on either side of him. 

Kasamatsu pulled what remained of the funnel cakes from the paper bag the vendor had given him and handed half to Ryōta.

Ryōta was tempted to share the sugary fried dough confection with Ghidorah, noting how the golden retriever whined and gazed up at him with pleading, puppy dog eyes.

If he shared the calorific snack with her, he wouldn’t have to run for such a long time tomorrow.

He tore off a piece and was ready to stretch out his hand when Senpai said “Knock it off.” Ryōta froze and Ghidorah went quiet.

Senpai gazed up at him with his crinkle-eyed smile, “Again, I was talking to Ghidorah. But you shouldn’t give her any. Sugar’s not good for dogs.”

Ryōta had no recourse but to stuff the fried piece of dough into his own mouth.    

"I'm fine," Senpai said, evidently returning to the blond's question from earlier. “A year ago, I wouldn't have been,” he admitted. And then he laughed, scratching the back of Ghidorah's head. The golden retriever made soft whimpering happy sounds in response to her master’s affection. "Now, I'm just looking forward to not having to write those alimony checks every month."

"Oh," Ryōta said, wondering how Senpai had gotten such a raw deal in the divorce settlement.

"I'm kidding," Senpai said with a teasing grin. “They use direct deposit now."

Yukio-san had paused his puppy petting and Ghidorah licked the man's hand to get his attention. Senpai smiled at his dog.

"You're so needy today," Kasamatsu cooed scratching the dog's head with both hands. Ghidorah was literally lapping it up.

Ryōta was over the moon that he’d finally gotten to meet the family dog. He loved the way Kasamatsu fussed over her. It was a small glimpse into a softer side of Senpai he knew existed, but the man seldom showed. 

The golden retriever wagged her tail happily when her master continued scratching the back of her ears. "You miss the boys, don't you girl?" Ghidorah barked in response.

Kasamatsu laughed. "Yes, yes you do." He petted the pretty pooch. "I miss them too," he told her. "But they'll be back tomorrow." 

Something about the happy tableau seemed forced to Ryōta. He knew all about putting on a cheery face on the outside when you actually felt like crying on the inside.  

"Senpai --" A concerned Ryōta began. He wanted his boyfriend to know he had a shoulder to lean on if he needed one. "Are you _sure_ you're alright? It's okay if you're not." 

Even as he offered Senpai a sympathetic ear, he felt the contents of his stomach churning. He would be supportive of his boyfriend, if that was what the man needed right now. But that didn’t mean Ryōta would feel just peachy about it if Kasamatsu was actually still pining over his ex-wife.

Yukio turned toward Ryōta. "I've made a mess of my life,” he said.

“What?” Ryōta squawked. He had been lying to himself if he thought he could deal with this. His heart rate shot up as the organ evidently took up residence in his quickly constricting throat. 

“That's what I _used_ to think," Senpai said to Ryōta who was still having a mini-heart attack and trying very hard not to show it. “But I don’t feel that way anymore.”

The air returned to Ryōta’s lungs after what felt like an eternity.

“I used to wake up with night sweats. I felt so guilty about it. About what we were putting the boys through,” his voice softened when he mentioned his sons. “I felt like a failure --” Ryōta watched helplessly as Senpai swallowed the lump in his throat. “I felt like I had failed my boys because I couldn’t keep our family together.”

Ryōta thought of the pretty house with the ume tree and the tire swing out front. 

"She cheated on me and I thought, _alright we can get through this_. I mean. It hurt. It hurt like hell. I was hurt and betrayed. I was angry. I'm not gonna lie. I was really angry. But I loved her."

Ryōta tensed up at the words. 

"Not now," Yukio-san quickly added. "But at the time I did. At the time, she was my wife. She was my heart, my whole life and we were going to work things out. At least that's what I thought. That's what she told me. And for a while, we tried to make it work. We really did.

“But after a few years she didn't want that. She wanted no part of that. She checked out of our marriage. And then there was nothing left to salvage." 

Ghidorah, seemingly more concerned with her own needs, nudged the palm of her master’s hand with her wet nose, begging for more cuddles. Senpai did as she asked, petting her coat, though this time he seemed absentminded about it. 

"We’ve moved on. The both of us," he said referring to himself and his ex-wife. “And the boys --” His voice cracked a teensy bit and he cleared his throat to hide it, though Ryōta who’d been tuned into his boyfriend for any clues he might give away didn’t miss it. “Mom and Dad got a divorce and the boys got that puppy they always wanted," he commented, petting Ghidorah.

Ryōta was so tense, he sat ramrod straight. He hadn’t moved a muscle since Senpai started talking.

Senpai smiled like it pained him, “The boys. I’m so proud of them. We’ve asked _so much_ of them and they are such great kids.”

A bored Ghidorah circled around the both of them before coming to a stop in front of Senpai. It was obvious she sensed she was being ignored and didn’t care for it. Ryōta knew the feeling.

Suddenly, the dog climbed onto Senpai's lap and Ryōta wished he could do the same. She licked Yukio’s face and he gently pushed her off. "She used to do that a lot -- sit on our laps -- when she was a puppy," he told Ryōta. "She seems to have forgotten how big she's gotten," he said smiling fondly at the dog.

She gave Senpai puppy-dog eyes and Senpai kissed the top of her head affectionately in response. 

Ryōta thought that he could learn a thing or two from the pooch who was clearly adept at using her feminine wiles to woo her master. 

After she’d been discouraged from sitting on Senpai, Ghidorah settled for resting her head on her master's lap, slobbering all over Senpai's unfashionable dad denim.

Ryōta secretly wanted to steal those old man jeans and drop them in the nearest dumpster. They weren't fit to donate to charity. But, Senpai seemed to live in them outside the office. It was like he only had the one pair. 

Kasamatsu didn't seem to mind the doggy drool in the slightest, running his fingers through Ghidorah's soft fur. "She reminds me of someone I know," he said.

"Who?" Ryōta asked.

"You," Kasamatsu answered, smiling playfully at him. 

"Me?" Ryōta said sounding surprised. “Why?”

" _Oh_ , I don't know," Yukio-san pretended to ponder. “For starters, you're both blonds. You're both hyperactive and overly affectionate. You both like to sit on laps even if you're a bit overgrown for that. The similarities are endless."

Ryōta started to pout. 

“Neither of you has any sense of personal space,” he added. “Although, I noticed that you’re sitting way over there,” Kasamatsu pointed out.

There wasn’t a whole lot of distance between them. You could probably fit one Murasakibaracchi in that gap, but Senpai was right, Ryōta ordinarily closed the space between them until he was practically sitting on the man’s lap.

Ryōta stiffened. “Yeah, well --,” he trailed off. He had nothing more he wanted to say about that. Ryōta was protecting himself. He had not inched closer to Senpai like he usually did because he was afraid of getting hurt. Though that ship had sailed, if the constriction he was feeling in his chest at the moment was any indication.    

"Since we’re on the topic of similarities between you and Ghidorah,” Senpai said, “I'd like to add that I'm also excessively fond of the both of you."

Senpai’s words transformed Ryōta's pout into a small guarded smile.

“Yeah?” Ryōta asked because he needed the reassurance now. He needed it badly.

“Yeah,” Yukio-san assured him.   

"I'm fine," Kasamatsu said, again going back to their conversation. "She's getting remarried and I've --"

Kise leaned in closer hanging on Yukio's next words, ". . . moved out of my parents’ house." Senpai had moved in with his parents for a time when he and his wife had separated.

The blond deflated like an old balloon.

Yukio laughed, his eyes crinkled, "I'm teasing you, idiot," he said. "She's getting remarried and I've somehow gotten myself a great boyfriend," he concluded.

"Yeah?" Ryōta asked hopefully.

"Yeah," Yukio responded.

Senpai had a way of doing that to him. Making Ryōta feel like his heart was going to burst with happiness.

It wasn't the first time Senpai had referred to Ryōta as his boyfriend in actual words, but it always made the younger man feel all kinds of warm and fuzzy to hear it. He wanted to return the favor. "I've got a great boyfriend too," he said.

"Damn straight, you do." Kasamatsu confidently affirmed, smiling fondly at Ryōta.

Yukio leaned back so he could lie on the grass and Ryōta followed suit.

Kasamatsu turned his head to the side. He looked at Ryōta for a moment, appraising him with his pretty blue eyes. “Come here,” he said and Ryōta shifted resting his head on Senpai’s shoulder.

Senpai ruffled his hair and Ryōta planted a kiss on the man’s cheek.

“Senpai,” Ryōta said because now was as good a time as any. “Kurokocchi and Kagamicchi are getting married.”

He sat up to gauge his boyfriend’s reaction to the news, but he couldn’t discern anything from the way Kasamatsu smiled up at him, patiently waiting for Ryōta to continue. “Akashicchi is throwing them an engagement party on Takaocchi’s birthday. It’s the 21st. I’d like you to come.”   

“Alright,” Kasamatsu said and Ryōta smiled brightly.

“Alright,” the blond repeated.    

###

"I think that one looks like a bunny rabbit," Ryōta said as they gazed at the clouds. They hadn’t moved from their spot on the grass in the park.

"Really?" Kasamatsu asked. "I don't see it."

"Those are its ears," Ryōta pointed to the sky. "and that's its tail."

"To me it looks like Godzilla," Yukio teased. Senpai had said the same thing about _every_ cloud they had spotted.

"You and your terrible lizard," Ryōta responded.

"Let's head out," Yukio said abruptly and Ryōta shifted out of his way so Senpai could stand up. Kasamatsu offered his hand to a now sitting Ryōta.

He smiled cheekily at his fair-haired boyfriend. "Let’s go home so I can show you my terrible lizard," he said.

Kise rolled his eyes at the awful, off-color joke, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't more than a little excited at the offer. He’d run all the way back to that tiny apartment, if he could.

###

Ryōta noticed that they took a different route back to Senpai’s apartment. They did _not_ pass the pretty house with the ume tree. He felt his heart sinking again as the smile faded from his lips.

“Hey,” Senpai said to Ryōta. He took the blond’s hand, running his thumb over Ryōta’s knuckles reassuringly. “There’s something else you and Ghidorah have in common.”

“What’s that?” Ryōta asked, racking his brain but not coming up with an answer.

“I love you both.”  

###

Yukio was absentmindedly running his fingers through Ryōta's hair,  _afterwards_ , as they lay on their sides on Senpai’s futon watching  _Destroy All Monsters_  on the tiny, grainy television. 

When they had returned to the apartment, Ryōta went for his overnight bag, taking the chew toy and pig’s hide he’d bought for Ghidorah weeks earlier and gave them to her. The presents had kept her occupied for a short while.

It had been _odd_ , to say the least, having an audience -- not to mention that hearing a squeak toy in the background had been very distracting -- but putting Ghidorah out on the small balcony had  _not_  been an option. She'd barked and barked until Senpai relented and let her back in. Putting her in the bathroom hadn't been much better.

They ended up just keeping her in the one-room apartment. Senpai had to tell her to stay a few times when she tried to lay on the futon with them, but eventually she got bored of watching whatever the heck it was her master was doing to that very loud human and she played with her toys in the corner of the room until she fell asleep.

When they had finished, Kise and Kasamatsu showered together in Senpai's small bathroom and put on comfortable clothes before getting backed into bed. This time, Ghidorah was invited in.

Even though Ryōta had pouted and pitched a fit a few weeks ago about how they only ever watched the same movies, he'd actually requested this movie. He missed their routine. He found that he enjoyed being near Senpai when Senpai did something  _he_  clearly enjoyed. 

Kasamatsu seemed to like being the big spoon and so Ryōta let him. Ghidorah snuggled up against Kise who petted her until she fell asleep again.  

Ryōta had dozed off for a bit too. He’d just woken up a few moments ago to Senpai running his fingers through Ryōta's hair while watching the movie. Clearly Kasamatsu was enthralled no matter how many times he'd seen it. Kise could tell Senpai was just itching to recite the dialogue and the blond smiled up at his boyfriend fondly. 

"Mmn, that feels good, Senpai," Ryōta mumbled.

"You like that, huh?"

"Right there?"

"Yeah."

Suddenly Yukio-senpai started to laugh. His hand still in Ryōta’s hair.

The blond tensed up. "What's so funny?" he asked, turning his head back so he could see Senpai.

"It's nothing," Kasamatsu said trying to contain his laughter. "It's just that Ghidorah likes it when I scratch behind her ear too."

Ryōta pouted. “Senpai’s so meeean,” he protested, before quieting down.

He returned his attention to the ninth film in the giant lizard movie franchise. He was starting to learn the names of the different monsters and had learned to ignore the horribly primitive special effects, for the most part.

He could still hear Senpai's poorly stifled chuckles behind him.

"It's not funny," Ryōta insisted.

"Ppfft," Senpai snickered. "It kind of is, actually," he insisted.

Kasamatsu started getting into the movie again and halted his ministrations.

"I didn't say stop," Ryōta whined and Senpai's hand returned to scratching behind his boyfriend’s pierced ear.

"Hmm, someone’s very persistent," Yukio said turning his attention to his demanding little spoon as he traced the shell of Ryōta's ear with his nose. 

Ryōta could feel the tiny hairs on the back of his neck standing up at attention. The touch tickled, but wasn't unpleasant.

“Is that . . ." He buried his nose in Ryōta’s head. "Coconut?"

"Yeah," Ryōta answered, feeling a bit hot under the collar with all this attention from Senpai. “It's my shamp --" He wasn’t sure of it but, _did Yukio-senpai just sniff his head?_  

"Senpai, did you just --"

"Yeah, sorry about that," an embarrassed Yukio replied. "It's creepy. I'm creeping you out right now, aren’t I?"

"No," Ryōta insisted. It wasn't creepy at all. Not when Senpai did it. When Senpai did it, it felt strangely _intimate_ , even more intimate than what they had done on the futon earlier. He had done what they had done on the futon with a lot of other people, but none of them had ever breathed him in the way Senpai had just done.

"It's fine," Ryōta assured him. It was more than just  _fine_  actually. "I liked it."

Ryōta was really tired or maybe he was just excessively comfortable. He didn't know what it was about being in bed with Senpai, but it really tired him out. 

His thoughts started drifting away from him as he was slowly slipping into the unconscious land of dreams, but there was something he wanted to ask. 

"Senpai,” he said with a hint of trepidation in his voice. “Why did she get the kids and the house and even the dog, when it wasn't your fault?"

Yukio tensed up. His hand paused in Ryōta’s hair and for a moment, the blond began to worry that his question had been too intrusive. But then Senpai placed a kiss on Ryōta’s temple. 

"She told the judge that I had a bad temper. She told the judge that I --"

Suddenly the blond was wide awake. Ryōta turned over abruptly, making much needed room between them on the futon and staring at Kasamatsu with startled eyes.

"She _lied_ , Kise. You know me. I may have beaten up on you and the guys from the basketball team when we were younger, but I would  _never_  do that to my wife and kids." 

Ryōta relaxed a bit, reigning in his beating heart. Everything Senpai said made sense. Ryōta had not met the boys, but everything he knew about Senpai told him he was a good father, a good man.

Ryōta allowed his head to fall on the pillow still facing Yukio. 

"She was worried she'd lose the kids with the whole affair business. So she did what she could to keep primary custody of them." 

"Hey, Senpai," he said yawning involuntarily and watching Yukio-san do the same thing in response. "Why'd you let her get away with it?" he asked.

He meant _all of it_ , the affair, the alimony payments, custody of the children, the house, Ghidorah, lying to the judge about Senpai doing those terrible things. Kise was starting to get angry on Senpai’s behalf. He was also starting to feel like Senpai had grown into a doormat. 

"Because sometimes getting what's rightfully yours, getting revenge, getting ‘back’ at your spouse. It isn't what's best for your children. Dragging out the divorce, cutting them off from their mother, that’s not what I wanted for my boys. She was not good to me, but she is good with them." 

Kasamatsu reached for Kise's ear again and the blond allowed him to resume his caresses.

"On Tuesday nights," he said, "I go to court-ordered anger management classes. Even though I didn't actually _do_ anything to deserve them. I didn’t do what she said I did to her and the boys."

Kasamatsu smiled wryly. "The funny thing is, I've made some questionable friends and the classes themselves have helped me mellow out quite a bit. It’s kind of like therapy."

"For how long, Senpai?" Ryōta asked and by now he was feeling sleepy again. 

"I've got about another six months of those before I get my certificate of completion. There's even a graduation ceremony at the end." Kasamatsu leaned towards Ryōta, getting very close to the blond's ear. "Wanna come? I hear they'll be cake." 

Ryōta giggled. Mostly because Senpai's warm breath was tickling his ear and also because the thought of still being a part of each other's lives six months from now delighted him. 

Senpai turned serious again. "After that, I can petition the court for a more equitable custody arrangement," he said. Then he rubbed his nose in Ryōta's hair, and this time making no effort to hide it, sniffed the side of Ryōta's head, before kissing that spot.

Ryōta smiled happily. He didn't know what it was about being in bed with Senpai that made him feel so cozy and comfortable.  

###

The following morning everything went to shit. Ryōta picked up the local paper outside the doorstep of Senpai’s apartment.

He brought it back with him and sat on the futon as Senpai slid the door to the closet open to take out the electric tea kettle.

The blond was looking for the sports page when he came across a wedding announcement. He stared at the photograph. It was the first time he’d seen her, but he knew it was her because she’d never reverted back to her maiden name.

And then he laid eyes on the groom. The face, the shape of the eyes. He’d never met the boys, but he’d seen _plenty_ of pictures of them.

 _"That's_ who she's marrying?!" Ryōta exclaimed because suddenly he saw the resemblance.

"Senpai," he said tugging on his boyfriend’s arm to get his attention. “Have you considered getting a paternity test?"

Kasamatsu’s blue eyes went ice cold in a matter of seconds. "He's mine, alright?"

"But Senpai --"

"He's my kid, alright! That’s my name on his birth certificate. So just drop it."

“Senpai --"

"I said, drop it!"

###

The following day, Ryōta dragged himself out of bed in the afternoon. Showered and got dressed. He wore dark sunglasses to hide his red, bloodshot eyes.

He met Takaocchi and Kurokocchi at a coffee shop near Kurokocchi’s school. He was very late and part of him wanted to just call and cancel.

“What happened?” His friends naturally wanted to know.

"Um, Senpai has a lot going on right now. He says I'm not good for his court-ordered anger management classes." Ryōta had worked himself up into such a state he’d started hiccupping.

And then his cell phone rang and it was Senpai asking him what he wanted for supper.

Ryōta knew that what had happened between them the day before was huge and that they were both pretending that things were normal. But he craved that, the normalcy, and so he pretended like everything was fine on the phone. 

###

That night Senpai came over to Ryōta’s apartment with dinner in hand. It was a peace offering of sorts, but neither one of them had much of an appetite.

“I shouldn’t have yelled at you,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Ryōta met his gaze, then looked away, “I shouldn’t have suggested that you get a --"

“Look. I knew at the time. I knew that the timing was off. We both knew. And I had a choice. I could’ve been a ‘man’ about it. I could have turned her away or I could accept them both, her and the pregnancy.

“At the time, the man she’d been seeing -- the man that she married on Saturday -- he was still married to his wife. And _fuck_ , I know this is such a clusterfuck. But none of it was the baby’s fault.

“When we reconciled, I knew what to expect. I knew the reality of the situation when I decided to take her back. We went to marriage counseling and we went to Lamaze class. And then six months later, he was born.

"And I knew, Kise. I knew when I first laid eyes on him. I just --, I fell in love with him and I knew in that moment that he would be mine. He would be mine the way Hajime is mine and _no one_ is taking that away from me. I’m his father and that’s all there is to it. End of story.”  

“Are you still mad at me, Senpai?” Ryōta asked.

Kasamatsu sighed. "We're going to have fights, idiot. It's normal. Every couple has them. You need to stop overreacting every time we have one." 

Ryōta was smart enough _not_ to point out that he’d hardly overreacted and that it had been a doozy of a fight.

"So you crossed a line. _Okay._ That happens sometimes.” Ryōta had crossed a _big_ line. He’d questioned Senpai’s paternity -- _Senpai_ , who was so fiercely overprotective of his children that Ryōta had yet to meet them.

“That doesn't mean it's over between us. Yeah, you pissed me off. You pissed me off immensely. But you're going to piss me off a lot and I'm going to piss you off sometimes too. That doesn't mean you go running away like my apartment’s on fire assuming the worst.

“It's called being in a relationship and why the _hell_ am I the one being all overly optimistic about love? I'm the  _divorcée_ in this relationship," he reminded Ryōta.

* * *

**AN:** I know it feels like I’ve dropped a bomb on you, but this was planned from the very beginning of the story. It’s the reason Haji-chan looks so much like Kasa and Hiro-chan does not. All I can say is that life is messy and sometimes we are presented with less than ideal circumstances. And sometimes when we make lemonade, we fall in love with those little lemons and they turn out to be one of the best things that’ve ever happened to us. Kasa certainly feels that way about Hiro-chan and he doesn’t regret any of it. Not for a minute. He loves his boys, both of them. Your thoughts? I’d love to hear them.

 


	9. The Gift Horse and the Clothes Horse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bottoms up!

A black luxury sedan pulled up to the curb just outside Ryōta’s apartment. The blond got into the passenger seat and buckled up.

The car’s heater had been cranked up making Ryōta feel like he’d just stepped into a hot tropical rainforest. It was a sharp contrast from the mid-November chill outside.

They circled the block pulling into an unoccupied loading area in front of a convenience store. The driver placed the vehicle in park where it remained idle while two of its occupants engaged in cryptic conversation.

“Did you bring the stuff?” the driver asked.

Ryōta felt like he was in a spy movie. Especially given that the driver was wearing leather driving gloves and dark wayfarer sunglasses.

He nodded in affirmation, taking the small bag he’d been carrying with him and dropping it onto the driver’s lap. It was a glossy, pink shopping bag tied together with a black grosgrain ribbon at the top. Though it had obviously been opened by the recipient, it was evident that a sales associate had initially assembled the package given its nice presentation.

The man tugged at one of the ends to unravel the bow, then waded through the many layers of light pink tissue paper until he got to the present at the bottom of the bag. He wolf whistled at its contents, making Ryōta flush in embarrassment. 

“Thanks for driving all the way over here, Takaocchi,” Ryōta said. This morning he’d called his friend in an absolute panic. The only reason Ryōta hadn’t called him last night, when the emergency arose, was because it was relatively late in the evening for a family with small children and Midorimacchi would’ve likely given Ryōta an earful for disturbing them at that hour.

Kazunari tugged on the corner of his sunglasses, revealing alluring steel-blue eyes. He flashed his friend a goofy grin. “Glad to do it,” he said, tossing the designer shades into one of the empty cup holders in the wood trim center console.

The hawkeye gazed through the rearview mirror at the two slumbering tots each safely buckled in their car seats in the backseat. “Long car rides always lull them to sleep,” he explained, smiling lovingly at his very precious cargo.

He turned his gaze to Ryōta again and added, “They were going bonkers pent up in the penthouse these past couple of days. So when you called this morning, I figured it’d be a nice day for a drive.”

The weather had been unusually chilly for autumn with the temperatures plunging to the low single digits on some nights. Takaocchi relayed to Ryōta how the cold weather had kept him from taking the kids to the tot lot at the park near their home.

As Takaocchi spoke, Ryōta looked back at the infant and toddler asleep in their respective car seats. The children were dressed comfortably in matching, light cotton rompers which explained why it was so sweltering hot in the cabin of the sedan. Keiko-chan had lost a sock and Kichi-chan's pacifier had fallen onto the leather seat.

Ryōta was the type of person who always noticed clothing. He’d look at a stranger’s outfit, before he’d notice their face.

Out of all their friends, Takaocchi was the least afraid of taking fashion risks. And he had the self-assured confidence to pull it off, _most of the time_. A pair of construction cone orange shorts came to mind. Midorimacchi was on the opposite end of the fashion spectrum, dressing like a turn-of-the- _last_ -century, stodgy, conservative college professor.

Takaocchi had always been a fashionable dresser and now that his pocketbook was tied to what was surely a flush joint bank account, would look right at home in the street fashion pages of a blog or reputable men’s magazine. His husband, on the other hand, looked like he belonged on the back cover of a textbook featuring the fuddy duddy author. But fickle fashion trends being what they were, the old college professor look was in and Midorimacchi, despite his best efforts, appeared quite trendy at the moment in his dark rimmed glasses, oxfords, tweed jackets, and argyle sweater vests.  

Perhaps it was because he’d been eager to leave the house this morning, but today Takaocchi looked unusually sensible in a navy cashmere crewneck sweater, tight fitting skinny jeans folded once at the bottom, and designer penny loafers, no socks. It was not ordinarily his style, but the fashion staples looked good on him.  

“It tires them out,” he explained, of the tot lot. “By the time we walk home from the park, they are ready for their naps. And I can _actually_ get some work done.”

Takaocchi reduced his work hours considerably when he became a father and started writing his sports column from home. Ryōta would sometimes leave comments on the articles, but his internet fan girls would often follow him there and divert the direction of the conversation to gushing over the former teen idol. It was something that irked the sportswriter and would often lead to flame wars.

“Usually they sleep for an hour, hour and a half. If I’m really lucky, sometimes two. I won’t let them sleep longer than that because then they won’t want to go to bed at night when Shin-chan and I tuck them in.” Takaocchi flashed a wide grin at Ryōta. “They get so excited when Daddy comes home from work,” he said, referring to his husband. “It’s really cute.” 

Ryōta had a hard time imagining anyone overly excited about seeing Midorimacchi, but Takaocchi and the kids seemed to love the prickly Miracle. Ryōta was no stranger to the Midorima household. He visited often enough, though it was always Takaocchi who invited him over and never Midorimacchi.

“Well?” Ryōta asked on pins and needles, prompting Takaocchi for an opinion on the package.

The hawkeye stroked his freshly shaved chin, pondering Kise’s predicament. He peeked into the gift bag again. “You gotta admit,” he said. “He’s got good taste.”

Ryōta shrugged. He supposed if he assessed the offending object from the neutral standpoint of an objective bystander, it wasn’t aesthetically  _un_ -pleasing. If you were into that sort of thing, which the blond wasn't sure he was.

“And it’s from a nice store,” Takaocchi helpfully pointed out. “He obviously shelled out some clams for you.”

Ryōta sighed miserably. “Yes, I know that,” he said. That was the part that got to Ryōta the most. He’d been the one to open his big mouth and complain to Senpai that he wasn’t doing enough to be a good boyfriend. They’d had that fight that one time and then they’d made up and now Senpai was making an effort by bringing him flowers and trying to be more romantic. It was obvious that Senpai had listened to Ryōta’s complaints because he’d gone down to the store and he’d given _this_ to Ryōta last night.

Senpai was  _trying_  to be romantic just like Ryōta had asked him to. _No one_ Ryōta had been with did anything as sweet as this. And Ryōta wasn’t used to being listened to. The people he’d dated in the past never went out of their way to appease Ryōta, to show him they cared about his happiness. He just wished it was  _anything_ , but this.

“What do you think it meeaaans?” he whined.  

“I think he wants you to wear it,” Takaocchi said most unhelpfully.

Ryōta had worked out that part on his own. Obviously, Senpai had wanted to see him in this. He’d given it to him in the first place.

“What’s the matter?” Takaocchi asked because someone as perceptive as Takaocchi quickly picked up on his friend’s dejected body language. 

“I just wish he hadn’t given me,  _this_ ,” Ryōta said gesturing to the pretty pink bag still resting on Kazunari’s lap.

“Why? Is it the wrong size?”

“No, it fits as well as it’s _going_ to fit.” Ryōta had tried it on. He’d been able to get all his jibbly bits into it. That wasn’t the problem.

 _I got you a present_ , Senpai had said after they had returned to Ryōta’s apartment from dinner and the blond had practically cooed with excitement.

Senpai had taken him to an actual restaurant this time. It hadn’t been the little French bistro that Ryōta had suggested more than a few times because Senpai explained to him that he’d called and he’d been told that they were booked solid for the next month -- but it had been a nice Kaiseki restaurant nonetheless. It had waiters and white tablecloths and served haute cuisine and more importantly, it was nowhere near a train station.

 _I want to make you feel like you’re cherished. I want to spoil you, because you deserve to be fussed over_ , Senpai had told Ryōta and the blond had practically melted on the couch in the living room. Ryōta  _adored_  surprises. More importantly, Ryōta adored that Senpai was still making an effort to woo him even weeks after Ryōta had complained about the way Senpai had been courting him at first. 

 _I’m sure whatever it is, I’m going to love it_ , Ryōta had effused. He’d leaned forward to kiss Kasamatsu-san on the lips.

 _I’m glad to hear that_ , Senpai had said with a smile, pleased to have made Ryōta happy.

Ryōta had clapped his hands excitedly as Senpai had taken the small gift bag from the closet in Ryōta’s genkan where he had put his overnight bag and the things he’d brought home from work earlier.

The blond’s bright smile had been blinding as he eagerly unwrapped his present. And then his face fell when he saw what it was.

The present had spent the night on Ryōta’s couch. He didn’t want to deal with it then and it wasn’t difficult to persuade Senpai to come to bed without it.

The blond had tried it on this morning after Senpai had left Ryōta’s apartment to go to work. His hands had trembled as he’d nervously tied the silky ribbons into bows on either side of his narrow hips.

He’d been a fit of nerves as he’d mustered the courage to walk over to the full length mirror. The present hung low on his hips. He’d taken one look at himself. He’d seen what he looked like and burst into tears. He couldn’t get the drasted thing off of himself fast enough. He balled it up and threw it back into the gift bag from whence it came. And naturally, he’d called Takaocchi begging him to come over.

“He’s got an ex-wife,” Ryōta said, as if the hawkeye needed the reminder.

“So?”

“So I’m the first guy he’s ever been with. _Don’t you see?_ That explains everything.”

Takaocchi peered into the gift bag again as if he and Ryōta were talking about two different things.

After enough time had passed that Kise was getting bored and his mind had wandered to who else, but Senpai, Kazunari delivered his verdict. “I think you’re reading too much into this,” he said.

Kise puffed up defensively as if  _no one_  in the history of the world had ever accused him of reading too much into anything. He took a big breath, “Takaocchi’s so meeee - -” he began to whine, but the hawkeye put his hand up interrupting him.

“Just hear me out. Shin-chan and I,” he paused to make sure the children were sound asleep. Kise was all ears already, he had this morbid fascination with hearing tidbits of Midorimacchi’s love life and really who wouldn’t be?

Ryōta always listened with great interest to Takaocchi's stories about their sex life because if any one of the Kiseki no Sedai had been destined for a monk-like life of solitude and celibacy, surely it should've been Midorimacchi.

Takaocchi was _sooo_ cool and Midorimacchi was  _well_ , _Midorimacchi_. It was inexplicable to Ryōta how his fellow Miracle had managed to snag a HSK and then _somehow_ persuaded the man to marry him. Takaocchi had everything going for him. He was hot and funny and got along with everyone. And he’d played point guard, the sexiest position on the court, in Ryōta’s estimation. Who would’ve guessed that Midorimacchi, of all people, would be in a healthy, loving relationship and had been in one for quite some time?

Ryōta liked to watch rom-coms and he liked to believe in romantic notions like soulmates and there being that one perfect person for everyone, and seeing that there was someone out there who was head-over-heels in love with grumpy, difficult, unbearably mean-down-to-his-long-bones Midorimacchi was love affirming it is own odd way.

“When Shin-chan and I,” Kazunari paused because he could already see he’d lost his audience who had a glazed over look on his pretty face like he was pondering some great unsolved mystery.

Kazunari proceeded to tell Ryōta the sordid story. “When we were in college, my mom decided to clean out my old room and turn it into a home gym. It was really upsetting, by the way. Like my parents just assumed I moved out for good when I moved in with Shin-chan. Well, _anyway_ , the point is, she asked me to come over and go through my stuff. Pick the things I wanted to keep, the things I wanted to give away, and the things I wanted to take with me back to the apartment I shared with Shin-chan. We moved a lot of my old stuff into the attic.

“I came home with a couple of moving boxes filled with mostly trading cards, CDs, a few basketball magazines and other knickknacks. You know how Shin-chan is allergic to messes right?”

Ryōta nodded because he knew how OCD Midorimacchi could be. He’d been the only middle schooler spraying down his gym locker with chlorine-based disinfectant.

“Anyway, so Shin-chan and I are unpacking the boxes and we realize my mom accidentally gave me a box of my sister’s things from the attic. Shin-chan sets it aside and gets started on the next box, but I notice Kazumi’s old cheerleading uniform is in there. So I take it out and at first I meant it as a joke. I thought it’d be funny. I wasn’t serious. I’m just teasing Shin-chan because, I mean the darn thing is wrinkled and it doesn’t even fit well. I can’t get the skirt to zip all the way up in the back. But I manage to put it on.”

“I play it off. Like it’s nothing out of the ordinary until Shin-chan catches a glimpse of me in his peripheral vision and he starts turning red. _Of course_ , I laugh,” Takaocchi started laughing loudly at the memory.

“At first, I think he’s being disapproving. He gives me that put-upon scowl he always gives me,” Takaocchi smiled as if he thinks it’s the most adorable sight in the world, “And I think, _Shit, he’s really mad at me. He’s going to yell_.  His face looks like he’s pissed off. All flustered and stuff. But the thing is, he’s in a t-shirt and loose pajama bottoms and I can _tell_ he’s interested. I mean,  _he_  may be a tsundere, but even he can’t hide a reaction like _that_. He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor of our living room with a prominent tent in his lap.”

“And I just about lost it,” Takaocchi told Ryōta as he proceeded to actually lose it again, having retold the story.

“The next time we went over to my parents, I returned the box with my sister’s things. But I never gave it back, my sister’s uniform. Several years later, we moved to the penthouse and I took the cheerleading outfit with us. It’s on a hanger on my side of the closet, way in the back, inside a ski jacket. I wear it to bed sometimes. Not often, but I do.

“And Shin-chan would kill me if he found out I told you, but it turns him on. I don’t know what it is about it, but I get the same enthusiastic response every time. Put me in a cheerleading skirt and top and he loses coherent thought. He really likes it. I can’t explain it,” Kazunari shrugged.

“It’s all pretend. I’ve got pompoms now and sometimes I’ll pick up my hair in tiny pigtails just for fun. But my point in telling you all this is that Shin-chan doesn’t  _actually_  want to be with a cheerleader. _Believe me_ , his gynecological rotation was the worst three-months of his residency. I thought he was going to have a nervous breakdown. He wants to be with  _me_  in a cheerleading skirt, that’s all.

“My point is that in all the years I’ve known Shin-chan, he’s expressed sexual interest in women exactly never. I can assure you, Shin-chan has zero interest in women. But he still buys me stuff like you have in this bag. I’ve got a drawer full of frilly things at home. The last time he got the shopping bags mixed up and accidentally gave it to his mother,” Takaocchi snickered again, but then he turned serious which was reassuring to Ryōta because he didn’t think his situation with Senpai was a laughing matter.

“So you got a pair of women’s panties. _Big deal_. I get those too. And I can assure you my husband has never once gotten it up for a member of the opposite sex. Like not even a stirring. It doesn’t mean anything,” Takaocchi assured his friend with a sympathetic smile. “It doesn’t mean Kasamatsu misses being with a woman or that he finds you lacking in anyway. All it means is that he thinks you’d look hot in a black side-tie lace thong and having seen the goods myself, I can see the man’s point.”

“So –-” Ryōta trailed off because he was still stuck with the mental image of Takaocchi in a Shūtoku cheerleading uniform.

“So you’re overthinking it. Suck it up. Be a man and wear those panties,” he said with a teasing tone. And then on a more serious note he added, “but if it’s something that really bothers you, you need to open that pretty little mouth of yours and tell your man. Kasamatsu’s a great guy, but he’s not psychic. He’s not gonna know it bothers you unless you tell him.”

###

Ryōta returned home with his metaphorical tail tucked between his legs. He may have overreacted a teensy bit. Takaocchi was probably right. He may have read too much into the gift. The thing was he didn’t  _want_  to wear it. He’d tried it on again after Takaocchi had left and it made his stomach flip flop a bit in a way that wasn’t at all pleasant.

That evening, Senpai came to Ryōta’s apartment after work and they were sitting on the couch engaged in a bit of tonsil hockey. Their kisses turned heated and Ryōta was getting handsy with Senpai who helpfully decided to climb on Ryōta and straddle the blond's lap. Senpai trailed kisses up the side of Ryōta’s neck before catching his left earlobe between his teeth. “I’ve been thinking about you all day,” he said.

A delighted Ryōta moaned appreciatively.

Kasamatsu sucked on Ryōta's earlobe and added, “I can’t wait to see what you look like in that present I got you.”

Ryōta froze. Yukio noticed. He immediately pulled back. “What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong?” 

"I'm not a woman, Senpai," Ryōta blurted out.

"Yeah. I'm _well aware_ of that, idiot,” Kasamatsu responded tersely. “I've already got your third leg jabbing me in the thigh. I don't need a verbal reminder."

Takaocchi had told Ryōta he needed to open his mouth and as difficult a task as it seemed at the moment, Ryōta knew his friend was right. He needed to tell Senpai how he felt.

Ryōta gathered all his courage and spoke. “The first time we were together you reached for my . . .  _um,_  chest. You touched me like you were with a woman.” Senpai had touched Ryōta’s right nipple. The man had palmed what was obviously a very flat chest. He had noticed Ryōta’s uneasy response then and he’d never done it again.

“Is that why you flinched that one time?” Kasamatsu asked.

Ryōta nodded. This whole time it had been something that had been bothering him. Now that he’d said it. He felt embarrassed and wanted to run away, but this was important and so he forced himself to continue, forced himself to stay put. “I can't help but be reminded that I’m the first guy you’ve ever been with, Senpai.”

Ryōta paused because he knew what was coming next and this was the most difficult part to get out, “Do you miss being with women? Is that why you bought me that present? Do you not find my body sexually attractive, Senpai?”

“What?” Thick eyebrows gathered in confusion and then went wide when realization dawned on Kasamatsu. “ _Is_ that why you thought I got that for you?”

Ryōta nodded because it was the truth and Takaocchi had said that he needed to tell Senpai if something was bothering him. And this was definitely bothering him. He knew that if he was going to have a lasting relationship with Senpai, he needed to open up about the things that made him uneasy. He knew he was doing the right thing. Even so, he could feel his bottom lip starting to tremble and so he bit it, to keep it still. He couldn’t help himself. He could feel tears of disappointment gathering in the corners of his eyes. 

“Come here, you noob,” Yukio-san said as he pulled the much larger man into his arms. "How is it that you are so vain and so insecure at the same time?"

He rested his cheek on a head of blond hair. “Why do you always take things the wrong way?” he asked kissing the top of Ryōta's head with fond exasperation, before running his fingers through silky blond locks.

Senpai held Ryōta’s head as he leaned in and gave the blond a warm kiss that was meant to be comforting, but quickly turned searing as Ryōta deepened it.

“I’m sorry I made you feel that way,” Kasamatsu said, still holding Ryōta’s head as he pressed warm lips to the side of Ryōta’s neck and nipping the sensitive skin there. Ryōta felt goosebumps in response to the intimate contact.

“I like fucking you," Kasamatsu said, taking Ryōta’s hand and very pointedly resting it on the bulge of his suit pants. “I wouldn’t be reacting this way,” he groaned as he pressed the heel of Ryōta’s palm against the swell in his lap, “if I didn’t think you're hot.” He leaned into Ryōta’s ear. “You’re so fucking sexy, I can’t _believe_ I have to spell it out for you,” he whispered, taking Ryōta’s pierced earlobe into his hot mouth.

Senpai continued to reassure Ryōta with heated caresses. “I touched you there that one time because I thought you might like it,” he said referring to Ryōta’s chest. “It’s an erogenous zone and not just for women.” He continued kissing Ryōta as he ran his fingers through Ryōta’s scalp and fisted his hair. “For the record,” he added. “If  _you_  want to touch me there, I have no objections.” 

Ryōta smiled. _How could he not?_ Senpai was excellent at comforting him, which was a very good thing because Ryōta had been in much need of reassurance moments ago.

The blond tucked both hands beneath Senpai’s work shirt, beneath his cotton undershirt and ran his open palms up his boyfriend’s bare chest until his fingertips brushed up against tiny, pebbled peaks.

“Here, Senpai?” the blond asked with feigned innocence.

“Alright, that’s enough,” Yukio said good naturedly as he pulled Ryōta’s hands out from under his shirt. “That tickles right now. But when where in bed together, feel free to explore. Nothing’s off limits.” Senpai held on to Ryōta’s hands for a little while longer.

Ryōta beamed. He very much liked the sound of that.

"Look at you," Senpai said in response to Ryōta’s broad smile. "How can you be so beautiful and so insecure, huh?"

Ryōta shrugged. It was easy, he supposed. He’d always been like this. He knew he was pretty. He’d been told his entire life. What he hadn’t known before Senpai, was that he was worthy of being treasured.

"Look, I know how much you like clothes. And you were right. I hadn’t exactly been wooing you at first. I hadn’t taken you to any nice places and the first time you came over to my place, I served you ramen out of a Styrofoam cup. I was such an idiot. And you were right to call me out on that shit. You deserve better. You deserve to be spoiled every once in a while too and I haven’t –-”

“Senpai, I didn’t mean it. I –-”

Ryōta had already felt terrible about having said those things to Kasamatsu-san. At the time he’d said them, he hadn’t taken Yukio-san’s circumstances into account. He was a single father. He had two kids to provide for. Although he no longer had alimony payments since his ex-wife had recently gotten remarried, he still had to pay child support.

“No, listen to me,” Kasamatsu said a little more sternly before returning to his normal tone. “I can’t afford all those designer labels you have in your closet, but I thought it would be fun if I got you something nice to wear to bed. Something fancy, but still within reach." 

“So that’s why you got that for me?”

“Come here, idiot,” Yukio-san said, tucking the tips of his fingers under Ryōta’s chin and forcing the blond to look at him. "Nothing good comes from an idiot who thinks too much. You know that right?"

Ryōta nodded in assent. “Besides,” Senpai said. “You don’t have to wear it for me. I like the Ryōta who doesn't wear any clothes best,” he said before pressing his mouth to Ryōta’s lips.

“Senpai,” Ryōta said when Kasamatsu let him up for air. The blond hesitated and then he added, “I think that’s why I started liking other boys.” 

He would ordinarily never volunteer this embarrassing tidbit, but he thought that since they were on the topic it was important for Senpai to understand. “When I was little, my sisters would dress me up in their old baby clothes. They’d tell everyone I was their baby sister and I would cry.”

“I think that it confused me. I think that that’s why I started liking boys instead of girls. I think that it was because they put me in dresses and bonnets and saddle shoes and --”

Senpai cupped Ryōta’s face again. He smiled at the blond like he was something very precious, but also very mistaken. “Kise,” he said, there was a teasing smile on his lips. “I don’t think that’s how it works. I think people are just born that way. We’re all born with preferences and playing dress up, it doesn’t change who we’re attracted to or who we’re not attracted to.”

“Are you sure about that, Senpai?” Ryōta asked, because all these years he believed that had been the reason, he’d thought he’d figured it out.

“I’m certain,” Kasamatsu said. “It doesn’t work that way. What you wear, doesn’t determine your orientation any more than what you eat or what movies you like or what music you listen to or what toys you used to play with.”

Ryōta thought about what Senpai had said for a moment. “I think I’d like to go exploring now, Senpai,” Ryōta said, referencing their conversation from moments ago, and Kasamatsu’s smile widened.

“Kise,” he said taking Ryōta’s hands into his own for a moment so the blond would listen. He met Kise's gaze and said, “I want you to top me.”

“Come again?”

“I think you should top me,” Senpai said sounding a bit annoyed that Ryōta had made him repeat himself. “I want to show you that I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything by being with you. I want to show you that I want to be with you, _all of you_.”

“What?”

"I want you inside me," he said. "You're so hung up about this lingerie thing. I want to show you that it's  _you_  I want to be with.”  

"Are you sure about this Senpai?" 

"Yes, of course I'm sure. It's with you isn't it?"

* * *

**AN1** : Eeeee! I think you all know what comes next. I hope I didn't build it up too much and that you're not disappointed when we finally get to **Ki** Kasa next chapter. I feel like I should warn you that it's not going to be exactly what you expect. I'm not very good at writing smut and there will be a _wee_ hiccup. Oh boy, now I've made myself nervous. 

 **AN2:** Sorry for sneaking in so much MidoTaka in what is supposed to be a KiKasa fic. I just miss writing my boys and I couldn’t resist giving Takaocchi an extended cameo in this chapter. Next chapter will have a bit of MidoTaka too, but I promise this is a KiKasa/KasaKise centric fic.   

 **AN3:** I thought it would be fun to change things up a bit and instead of having a character who is excited about crossdressing, to have a character who isn't thrilled about it for his own reasons. And to have that character's partner tell him that that's okay too because healthy relationships are about doing what we're comfortable with and respecting each others' preferences. That can be sexy too, right? IDK. BTW, I don't think Kise would've reacted so badly to the gift if it wasn't for the fact that Senpai had been married before and that he's the first guy Senpai's ever been with. What do you think?


	10. Emergency Landing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm certain no one's ever died of embarrassment."

Ryōta would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous. This would be Senpai’s first time switching roles and the blond wanted everything to go perfectly.

This wasn’t Ryōta’s first time topping someone -- by any means, but the blond was _so_ nervous he kept dropping the bottle of lubricant on the mattress several times in the process of uncapping it. And he hadn’t even gotten started on tearing the foil on the small square packet lying on his pillow like a mint because first he needed to lay the groundwork, he needed an understandably tense Kasamatsu-san to open up for him.

“Just relax, Senpai,” Ryōta said, rubbing Yukio-san’s lower back reassuringly.

“Easy for you to say, idiot,” was the terse response he got back.

In any event, the blond was starting to flag under the immense pressure he was putting on himself. Ryōta wanted everything to go smoothly for Kasamatsu-san.

He wanted to make Senpai feel amazing.

“Does it feel good, Senpai?” he asked cautiously.

“It feels weird,” Kasamatsu grunted.

More than anything, Ryōta wanted Senpai to feel the way the blond felt all those times when he’d been in the position that Senpai was in now, like he was safe and cared for and cherished and wanted and incredibly sexy.

“How about now?”

“Still _weird_ ,” Kasamatsu bit back a groan. “Stop asking me,” he insisted through gritted teeth.

Their dialogue was anything but titillating pillow talk, but Ryōta felt he needed to keep talking, needed to keep the lines of communication between them open despite Senpai’s clipped responses.

When Ryōta played _catcher_ , he was lithe and nimble and experienced enough to assume any number of convoluted configurations and he and Senpai often did change positions when they were in Ryōta’s bed or on Senpai’s futon. Kise Ryōta was comfortable playing any position. This was as true on the basketball court as it was in the bedroom. But this would be Senpai’s first time in _this_ role and they had decided it was best to just start with the basics in terms of positioning.

And so naturally Senpai had started out on all fours. Kasamatsu remained on his knees but, at some point, he had decided to bury his head in a pillow while Ryōta -- who was kneeling behind him on the mattress -- tried to figure things out on his end, _so to speak_.

Ryōta tried to reassure a skittish Senpai who was understandably a little high strung given the novelty of the situation. “Don’t be nervous,” he said to Yukio-san as he once again rubbed the small of Senpai’s back reassuringly.

He coated his fingers with more lubricant and started again. “I’ll go slow, Senpai. Alright? Just tell me if it hurts.”

Kasamatsu grunted in assent and Ryōta proceeded just as he said he would, _slow_.

This was as far as Ryōta had gotten moments earlier, before he’d decided to stop and coat his fingers again in an overcautious display of jitters.

He started with just the tip of a well lubricated index finger and once Senpai got used to the unfamiliar pressure, Ryōta very carefully and very slowly pushed through.

“Alright so far Senpai?” he asked as soon as he passed the barrier, not daring to go any further without verbal affirmation even though he’d gotten yelled at moments ago.

“Fine,” Yukio grunted and Ryōta could tell his boyfriend was trying to acclimate himself to the strange sensation of being breached.

“It’s going to feel weird at first, but then it gets better,” Ryōta said speaking from his own experience.

“How about now?”

“Still weird, but keep going,” Kasamatsu huffed.

Ryōta took his time with Senpai because he didn’t want to hurt him.

The way he prepped Senpai was very different from the way he prepped himself. He was being so careful with Yukio-san, in a way he’d never been with anyone else. Ryōta was always in a hurry to get started, but this was Senpai and so he took it slow. He forced himself to pause at every knuckle – first, second, and third -- ignoring the tight heat that engulfed his digit and caused his nether regions to regain some of its lost interest again.

“And now?”

“I said keep going,” an irritated Yukio barked. “Now stop asking. I’ll let you know if it hurts.”

Ryōta could tell that Senpai was getting a little annoyed with all the questions. But he needed the verbal affirmation because the biggest drawback of this position was that he couldn’t see Senpai’s face.

When Ryōta reached as far as he could go with his index finger, he slowly pulled out. And then he repeated the process, this time adding a second finger.

“And now?”

“Stop asking me, you idiot,” Kasamatsu snapped. “It’s hard to concentrate if you keep interrupting my thoughts.”

“Whaaa Senpai! Don’t yell at me.” Ryōta wailed.

“Look,” Kasamatsu said, apparently fed up with the way things were progressing. “Let’s treat this like being at the dentist. If it starts to hurt, I’ll let you know, okay? I’ll raise a hand or whatever. Otherwise just assume I’m fine and for fuck’s sake stop asking.”

“Senpai!” Ryōta whined. “You’re ruining the mood.”

“You wanna switch back?” Kasamatsu threatened.

“No, no,” Ryōta was quick to assure him because the blond _wanted_ to do this. He really, really, really wanted to do this. And despite Senpai’s nerves and his extremely short fuse tonight, Kise knew that Senpai wanted to do this too.

“Fine,” Kasamatsu responded, “then let’s do it my way.” And perhaps because he felt he was being too harsh on his boyfriend, Kasamatsu leaned back and kissed the blond on the cheek before resuming position once again.

Ryōta took a deep breath trying to calm himself. _Okay._ They were off to a rocky start, but it was nothing they couldn’t recover from, he thought.

Kise added a third finger and repeated the slow and careful process.

And then, _Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck._ Ryōta’s heart raced, his blood pressure shot up into the stratosphere as his eyes widened at the harrowing picture unfolding before him. "Oh fuck."

_Shit, had he just said that aloud?_

"What do you mean 'oh fuck.' What is it? What's wrong?" Kasamatsu naturally wanted to know. He looked over his shoulder at a pallid and panic-stricken Ryōta who was still kneeling behind him.

Kasamatsu raised a thick, questioning eyebrow. “Well?” he demanded.

"There's blood. _Oh fuck_ , Senpai, there's blood. There’s _a lot_ of blood."

"Is that normal?" Yukio asked in a strangled, hopeful tone. 

" _Aw geez_ , Senpai. _Of course not_. It's not a hymen." 

“Don’t give me that tone, idiot,” Kasamatsu said. “I’ve never done this before. _You’re_ the one with all the experience, as you like to point out.”

Ryōta had gotten a lot of “frequent flyer miles” in the sack even though Senpai didn't like to hear him say that. Ryōta had been with lots of men. He’d also been with lots of women and some of them had been into this sort of thing too. And so he'd had a lot of experience. But he'd never been a part of what could possibly be a major medical emergency.

"Oh fuck," the blond started to freak out in earnest. He wasn’t the only one.

“Stop saying ‘oh fuck,’ you idiot and tell me what’s wrong!”

The truth was that Ryōta had no idea what was wrong and to make matters worse he was starting to feel like he was going to pass out.

Ryōta had gone through flight school. He'd undergone hundreds of hours of simulated air emergencies, taken plenty of classes, and participated in training exercises on how to keep his head on straight in a stressful situation. But he was not good with blood. _And oh fuck_. There was a copious amount of it on his sheets. And to top it all off this was _Senpai’s_ blood.

" _Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck_." 

"Shut up, idiot," Yukio said sternly, because clearly Yukio was not appreciating the meltdown Ryōta was having on the opposite side of Yukio’s rear end.

"Just calm down. Don't panic." It was unclear who Kasamatsu was speaking to. And then Yukio made the grave mistake of looking down, between his thighs at Kise's baby blue sheets and "Oh fuck," he echoed Ryōta’s words.

They were both frightened in earnest now. 

"Wait here, Senpai," Ryōta said needlessly. It wasn’t as if Senpai would be going anywhere in his birthday suit and with what looked like a crime seen coming from his backside.

" _No!_ Put that thing down,” Kasamatsu demanded and then he asked, "What are you doing? Why are you taking a picture?"

"I'm be right back, Senpai," Ryōta exclaimed waving his phone around frantically before running out of the room ostensibly to get a washcloth.

###

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" The gravelly voice on the other end of the line was gruff and deep and _deeply_ displeased.

“Yes, but --"

"I’ll tell you what time it is, idiot. It's three in the morning.”

“Yes, but --"

“Why the  _hell_ are you waking me up? Do you  _want_  me to revoke your phone privileges again?"

"Whaaa --" Ryōta cried into the phone. “There’s blood, Midorimacchi. There’s a lot of blood.”

Midorima immediately dropped the rebuke. "Have you been shot?" he asked concerned.

" _What?!_ Why would you even think that --"

“Don’t give me that you idiot. You’re the one calling me at this hour!”

"It's Senpai. We were . . . and then . . . I broke him," the blond said, cowering on the floor in the master bathroom.

"You broke what idiot? And calm down. I can barely make out what you’re saying." 

“I broke him, Midorimacchi.” Ryōta gripped the phone tightly. “I broke Senpai.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU _BROKE_ ME?!!” Senpai yelled from Ryōta’s bed, evidently eavesdropping on the conversation. “Get back in here!” Kasamatsu demanded.

"Midorimacchi," Ryōta said shaken. "I'm really scared and I didn't know who else to call. There's blood. There's a lot of it."

Ryōta heard a loud noise behind him that sounded like Senpai had just fallen out of bed.

“There's a lot of blood. I sent you a pic. What do I --, Midorimacchi?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line presumably because Midorima was checking his text message.

"Listen to me carefully, Kise."

Unlike Ryōta who tended to lose his head at the drop of a hat, Midorima kept his wits about him in all manner of crises as was expected from a medical professional.

"On a scale of one to ten how much pain is he in? Is he nauseous or vomiting?"

"No."

"Don't answer for him, _idiot_. Go ask him."

Ryōta did as he was told. He asked the man who was now lying on his bedroom floor wrapped in a sheet like a mummy.

"Midorimacchi, he says it feels like a four, but he doesn’t have any of that other stuff."

"Okay good," Shintarō said. "I'm on my way. I’ll take the spare key and let myself in."

“But if _anything_ changes, Kise. Listen to me. You are to dial 1-1-9 and get the paramedics to take him to the nearest ER,  _immediately_. If his condition worsens, _do not_ wait for me. If that happens, text me your location and I'll meet you at the hospital instead.

###

"Midorimacchi?" Ryōta asked venturing cautiously into the bedroom carrying the hot towels he'd been asked to bring. The blond wasn't sure what the purpose of the hot towels were, other than to get Ryōta out of the room. Midorimacchi certainly wasn't using the stack Ryōta had brought in earlier.

Midorima was removing his latex gloves and letting them fall into the wastepaper basket beside Ryōta’s bed.

"Will Senpai be alright?"  _Did I break him_ , Ryōta wanted to ask.

"Fool. I can't divulge that information to you. It's doctor-patient confidentiality."

"It's fine Midorima," a noticeably subdued Yukio chimed in from his spot on Ryōta's bed. "You can tell him."

Midorimacchi sighed the sigh of the thoroughly exasperated. Ryōta knew because Midorimacchi sighed that way at the blond often.

"That medical _emergency_  you got me out of bed for at three in the morning," Midorimacchi pinched the bridge of his nose like he was trying not to get angry, "turned out to be hemorrhoids."

Yukio-senpai burrowed his head under the covers. It reminded Ryōta of the ostriches he'd seen at the zoo once on a field trip with his first grade class. It was the same position too, with their posteriors in the air and their heads buried in the sand.

"Hem --," Ryōta started to say and Senpai emitted a pained whimper in the background. 

" _Yes_. Hemorrhoids," Midorima confirmed. Senpai whimpered again, but the doctor kept talking.

"They're internal and asymptomatic so obviously the condition was not something Kasamatsu noticed or you could have seen. They’re benign. A  _nuisance_ ," he said looking pointedly at the blond. "Nonetheless, I recommend extraction. I've left a list of reputable surgeons on your bedside table.”

Ryōta looked at Senpai adoringly, like he was a tiny baby bird who'd fallen from his nest and broken a wing.  _Don't worry, Senpai. I'll put you back together again_ , he silently pledged with his loving gaze. Yukio-senpai met Ryōta’s gaze with a disapproving scowl.

“The next time you have another bedroom mishap,” Midorima said to Ryōta, “ _please hesitate_ to call me. Especially at this hour you idiot. I have an _actual_ medical specialty, you know. And it is _not_ being at your beck and call."

Midorima started to put his things away in his medical bag, but then Ryōta opened his big mouth.

"Midorimacchi's so  _mean_ ," the blond whined.

This caused the tsundere to pause in his endeavor. There was an evil gleam in his bespectacled green eyes. " _Oh_  and Kise," he said with a studied casualness that Ryōta knew did not bode well for him. "Your technique is _flawed_."

Ryōta howled in indignation. "My technique is as flawless as my complexion," he insisted.

Midorima raised a questioning eyebrow and started rattling off a list of transgressions. "You should've used more lubricant, you hadn’t relaxed the sphincter. This clearly needed more prep work," he said pointing to the patient who was still hiding behind the pillow and probably praying for a quick and painless death -- anything was preferable to listening to these two twits bickering over the state of his rump like he wasn’t even in the room.

"I was being _careful_! And we were just getting _started_ ," Ryōta clamored. "Besides, you've only been with Takaocchi," he said.

"So what?" Midorima demanded.

"So what do _you_ know anyway?” Ryōta retorted. “Unlike you, I've been with _plenty_ of guys --"

Yukio-senpai piped up from beneath Ryōta's pillow. "Idiot. I still don't want to hear that," he snapped at his boyfriend. His irritated plea fell on deaf ears.

"-- and I've never once gotten a single complaint," Ryōta said. He left out the part about being the receiving party for most of those escapades.

Ryōta noticed Senpai’s head was still buried under the pillow. "Are you alright, Senpai?" he asked.

"I'd like to die now, thanks for asking," Yukio-san lamented.

“But Senpai," Ryōta retorted. "Midorimacchi said it's not life threatening. It's just hem --"

Senpai emitted a strangled moan," _Stop saying that word_ , you idiot."

"I'm certain no one's ever died of embarrassment," Shintarō said dryly.

Ryōta noticed Midorimacchi had taken out his phone. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Calling Kazunari."

"Oh no you don't!" Yukio-senpai yelled. "Stop right there," he said, sounding like a man at the end of his rope. "I've had enough people poking around my behind for one night. I do _not_ need a third person looking around back there just so you two can settle your petty squabble. _You twits_."

Midorima glowered at the insult.

He put the phone down for a minute and said with poorly concealed irritation, "I'm calling Kazunari to bring me a change of clothes. I'll need to shower and get dressed here, if I'm to make it to work on time." He did not add the word,  _idiot_  at the end of his sentence. Then again, he didn't need to.

"Where are you going Senpai?" Ryōta cried out when he saw Yukio-san get out of his bed with the flat sheet wrapped around his waist.

"To get dibs on the shower. I'm heading to work too."

"But Senpai, it's four in the morning!"

###

Midorima had brought the spare key to Ryōta’s apartment with him and so when Takaocchi arrived sometime later, Ryōta had to let him in.

“So sorry about this,” the blond told his friend. He felt awful about having woken up the Midorima household at such an early hour with what turned out to _not_ be an emergency after all.

“Don’t worry about it,” Takao said. “I’m happy it ended up being nothing.” He handed Ryōta a pair of groggy children who were still in their pajamas. “Here, hold them for a moment. I have to bring some things up from the car for Shin-chan.”

Ryōta didn’t know what to do with the wriggly children -- was he supposed to try and get them to fall back asleep? was he supposed to entertain them until their father got back? -- thankfully, the blond’s conundrum was short lived.

When the little one started wailing in Ryōta’s ear, Shintarō walked up to Ryōta in the genkan, called the blond an idiot and took his children with him into the living room.

Ryōta was surprised to learn that Midorimacchi was adept at soothing children. It certainly wasn’t a skill the tsundere was known for in middle school or high school, or at any other time that Ryōta had known him, for that matter.

###

Ryōta pouted unhappily from his perch at the island in his spacious kitchen as he recalled the events of the past few hours.

Whatever romantic notions he had envisioned for last night, they had  _not_  included Midorimacchi fingering  _his_ boyfriend. Ryōta's expression turned sour as his mind conjured up the unpleasant memory.

"You jealous?" Kazunari teased when he caught his friend staring in the direction of the now vacant master bedroom.

"No," Ryōta pouted.  _Okay, maybe a little_. Whether it was jealousy or not the blond was clearly miserable.

Midorima had left for work shortly after Takaocchi had come over with a garment bag containing a bespoke three piece-suit and a gym bag packed with the tsundere’s toiletries, Italian leather brogues, and undergarments.

And perhaps desirous of skipping out on the worst morning-after in the history of ever, Kasamatsu-san left to go to work more than two hours before his start time.

Kazunari decided to have fun at his friend’s expense. "You _should_ be jealous," he said. "Now that Kasamatsu got a feel for Shin-chan's magic fingers, he's not going to wanna go back to your clumsy prodding,” he joked.

Ryōta sucked in a dramatic breath. "Takaocchi's so mean," he cried out.

Kazunari just laughed. "C'mon," he told him, trying to cover a yawn with the palm of his hand. “You know I’m just playing with you. I'll make you breakfast," he offered.

Ryōta of course had no such thing as "breakfast foods" (whatever that was) in his empty cupboards.

Kazunari gave the blond the option of minding the tots while he popped into the combini down the street or doing the grocery shopping himself.

"You've got to get everything on that list," Kazunari warned as Ryōta was putting on his coat and scarf to go outside.

Takaocchi was well aware of Ryōta’s tendency to "substitute" ingredients in hopes of lowering the calorie count or sabotaging the meal altogether by making it inedible. "If you don't, I'm making you change Kichiro's next dirty diaper. He had peas with dinner last night, _believe me_ you won't want to change that."

Under penalty of dirty diaper, Ryōta got every objectionable item on Kazunari's scraggly-written list. Even the sugary stuff.  _Ick_ , Ryōta thought as he picked up the maple syrup by the handle as if it were a dead rodent and reluctantly put it in his shopping basket.

###

"I am ruined, Takaocchi," Ryōta complained to his friend as he pushed around a griddlecake with his fork. "Midorimacchi threatened to mail me safe s-e-x pamphlets." Ryōta spelled the word out, mindful of young ears. "He said he’s going to demonstrate the proper prep work procedure on a papaya next time he sees me."

“Ah, just ignore Shin-chan,” the hawkeye said. “It’s his way of showing he cares, that’s all. He was _really_ worried when you called him this morning. He thought it could’ve been a perforation and _that_ would’ve been a medical emergency,” Takaocchi explained as he reached for the maple syrup and poured some of it on his plate.

The blood drained from Ryōta's face just thinking of what could’ve been.

Kazunari was sitting at Ryōta's dining room table feeding his children the flapjacks he’d made. "Mmmm, you like that don't you?” he said to his toddler. “That's cause it's so sugary."

Ryōta did not own a high chair and so Kazunari sat Keiko-chan on Uncle Ryōta's lap while the hawkeye balanced the baby on his own lap.

"Keiko-chan, is that syrup in your hair?" he asked his toddler while he popped a bit of pancake into the baby’s awaiting mouth.

"No," the little girl giggled even though she did have a glob of sticky maple syrup on the side of her head and it was dangerously close to Uncle Ryōta's dry clean only, silk button down that he’d bought on his shopping trip with Kurokocchi.

"I think it _is_ ," Kazunari insisted in a sing-songy voice as he fed her another bite.

"And look at your brother," he said of the baby he was balancing on his own lap.

“Look at you two," Takaocchi said to his children, sounding pleased as punch. “You’ve made a mess.”

"I'm going to have to hose the two of you down in Uncle Ryōta's shower."

Ryōta felt a little bit like he was intruding on a private family moment. All those times his mother had called him crying about his perpetual bachelorhood, Ryōta had never once felt the slightest stirring, the most minute inkling of becoming a family man. And yet he was surrounded by them. His friends and even his boyfriend were parents.

He found himself wondering when Takaocchi had turned into this, a _dad_. And like everything else, the hawkeye was great at it too.

"Uncle Ryōta has coconut-scented shampoo," he told his young brood. Takaocchi had washed Ryōta’s hair not that long ago when he'd had to come over and pick the blond up off the floor. "You're going to like it."

"No," came a toddler protest as Takao picked up both kids and walked down the hallway toward the master bedroom where the _en suite_ bathroom had both a shower and a tub.

Suddenly Ryōta found himself alone at the table.

Ordinarily, the blond would never dream of eating anything as carb heavy and caloric as pancakes for breakfast, but he was in the midst of a crisis.

###

Midorimacchi had evidently worked his magic. It was clear the green haired Miracle had real clout at the hospital in Bunkyō where he worked.

The doctor at the top of Shintarō’s list of recommendations was able to see Senpai the following day. Kise went with his boyfriend to the appointment even though Senpai insisted it wasn't necessary.

Towards the end of the week, Kise took Senpai to the hospital for his procedure.

"What's all this?" Kasamatsu asked of the leather weekender Kise was lugging around with him.

"Don't worry Senpai," the blond responded. "I'm spending the night with you. Once you're in recovery, I won't leave your side."

"Idiot. It's an outpatient procedure. I’ll be going home today. That’s what outpatient means."

"Oh." Kise had thought it meant the patient would be knocked _out_ , meaning anesthetized.

But as Kasamatsu was getting ready to be wheeled out to the “Patients Only” room, Senpai grabbed Ryōta's hand and gave it a quick squeeze. "Thank you for being here for me," he told Ryōta.

"Of course, Senpai," Ryōta responded. The blond smiled feeling nervous and willing this whole ordeal to be over soon.

Kise sat on pins and needles in the waiting room with all the other people waiting for their loved ones. He received a text of support from Takaocchi who told Ryōta he was thinking of him and would pass by the blond’s apartment with the kids later for a visit with Kasamatsu.

Kise came prepared. He pulled out a comfortable, yet fashionable sweater from his leather weekender and his new issue of Gentlemen's Monthly and sat in the waiting room with everyone else.

Sometime later, when Ryōta was down to the last article about coattails, Midorimacchi walked up to him. "I wouldn't be here for such a ridiculously minor procedure, but Kazunari made me check up on Kasamatsu," he told an anxious Ryōta.

"He's fine," the tall doctor stated, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "I spoke to the surgeon who performed the procedure. He said there were no complications. Kasamatsu has been wheeled over to recovery. You'll be able to see him when he wakes up."

Ryōta breathed a sigh of relief. Everyone told him it was a minor procedure, but he still fretted over it. "Midorimacchi," he said tugging on the sleeve of a white lab coat. "Thank you."

Shintarō pushed his glasses up again, "Like I said, Kazunari made me do it."

"Thank you anyway," Ryōta said sincerely.

###

Even though Kasamatsu could clearly walk, it was hospital policy that all patients be wheeled out to their cars.

While Kasamatsu had initially fussed over the unnecessary wheelchair, the burly orderly and his large muscles were  _very_  persuasive.

"Here you go Senpai," Ryōta said to Yukio-san as the orderly arrived with the wheelchair. Kise handed Senpai what looked like a small inflatable toilet seat.

"What the heck is that?" he asked.

"It's a ring cushion, for your butt," Ryōta explained.

Kasamatsu raised an annoyed eyebrow. "I don't need a butt pillow," he said irritably.

Sensing a domestic dispute, the well trained orderly left the lovebirds alone so the two of them could get their things in order. Their many, many things. Kise had brought an awful lot of stuff with him for a procedure that took less than four hours from the time they checked-in until Senpai was discharged.

"I can't  _believe_  you bought me a butt pillow," Kasamatsu groused. "Actually, on second thought, I _can_ believe it."   

Senpai had spent the night at Ryōta’s apartment and the blond had gone overboard at the nearby pharmacy purchasing all sorts of medical supplies, including the inflatable butt pillow. He was determined to be an excellent caregiver to his boyfriend.  _Don’t worry Senpai, I'll take very good care of your bottom_ , he had told a mortified Yukio.

"It's just till we get home. Then you can lie down on your tummy on my bed. I've already got a freezer full of ice packs for your bum."

Ryōta wasn't kidding. He had enough ice packs to transport an organ for transplant.

"My ass is  _fine_ , Kise," Kasamatsu asserted irritably.

Ryōta bit back the obvious quip. He didn't think Senpai would appreciate a bit of humor at the moment and the blond was beginning to think the strong pain killers the man was on were starting to wear off, making Kasamatsu-san grumpy,  _er_  grumpier than usual.

Ryōta decided to reason with the man. "You say that _now_ , but you'll need to sit down and it's a long cab ride to Shibuya and their could be bumps in the road and your bottom just had surgery.”

"Kise," Kasamatsu said tersely as he carefully got out of the hospital bed he’d been laying on. "I would appreciate it, if I could leave this hospital with just a  _teensy, tiny_ shred of dignity.”

“Not everything has to be a spectacle," he proclaimed as he lowered himself onto the wheelchair the orderly had left behind "Ow, ow, ow,” Yukio exclaimed, grimacing in pain the moment his fanny hit the seat of the wheelchair. "Okay, you win. Hand me that stupid cushion," he told a smug faced Ryōta.

The blond did as he was told, smiling sympathetically at his stubborn boyfriend. "Not a word," Kasamatsu warned.

Kise couldn’t hold himself back any longer. He kissed his adorable grumpy gus of a boyfriend on the top of his spiky-haired head. "I wouldn't dream of it," the blond said smittenly.

By then, the burly orderly was back and he walked towards them to wheel Yukio out of the room.

"Oh, Senpai," Ryōta reminded him. "Don't forget your flowers," he said as he handed Kasamatsu two gorgeous bouquets. The first one was large enough, but the second one was downright enormous. Kasamatsu grumbled under his breath, something about new mothers in the  _maternity_  ward not being _this_  fussed over.

Together, the arrangements were _so_ large they barely fit on Senpai's lap. And of course, they caught the attention of all the nurses, the hospital staff, the visitors and the patients they encountered in the halls. Kasamatsu hid his crimson face behind his hand the whole way.

###

Ryōta did _not_ own a car. He had an assigned parking space at his apartment, but nothing to park in it. It wasn't the expense so much as the fact that he'd never gotten around to getting a driver's license.

"You drive a plane for a living, but you've never driven a car?" Kasamatsu observed as he gingerly got into the backseat of a taxi Ryōta had called in. He was mindful to sit on his inflatable pillow. This time, he didn’t put up a fuss.

"I just never got around to it."

"I could teach you," Kasamatsu offered. He seemed to be in better spirits now that they were out of the hospital and heading back to Ryōta’s apartment.

"I'm pretty sure I know how to drive, Senpai,” Ryōta insisted.

Yukio gave the cab driver a quick glance and once he’d assured himself the man’s eyes and attention were on the road, Kasamatsu leaned over and gave Ryōta a quick peck on the lips. "Thank you for being very sweet and fussing over me today. I don't always know how to show my appreciation."

Ryōta beamed happily and a bashful Kasamatsu looked away. He examined the veritable flower shop that shared the cramped backseat of the taxicab with them.

"Kise," Yukio said trying very hard to remain calm. "Don't you think the flowers were a bit of an overkill for a simple outpatient procedure that lasted," Senpai looked at his watch, "oh, less than  _four_  hours?" The procedure itself had probably taken fifteen minutes, the rest of it had been filling out forms (Senpai had listed Ryōta as his emergency contact and the blond was beyond elated) and prep work for the anesthesia which was quickly wearing off if the scowl on Yukio's face was any indication.

"I understand why  _you'd_  get me flowers,” Kasamatsu continued talking. “You always go overboard, but I really hadn't expected a second floral arrangement from Takao," Yukio said. The card had been signed _Best wishes for a speedy recovery. The Midorima Family_ , but everyone knew Shintarō had nothing to do with it.

Yukio plucked the card that came with the smaller of the two enormous arrangements. It had come from a Ginza florist. "Are they legally married?" Kasamatsu asked about the senders of the second floral arrangement.

Ryōta nodded.

"Family registry and everything?"

Ryōta nodded again.

"But  _how_?" 

"They got married abroad and then their lawyers got the marriage registered here," he explained.

"I didn't even know that was possible," Yukio said astounded.

"It helps that Midorimacchi's family is well-connected and  _loaded_." Ryōta added. "Kagamicchi and Kurokocchi are planning to do the same thing when they get married in L.A. next year."

Ryōta looked at Senpai's handsome profile as the man stared out, past the driver focusing on an indeterminate spot somewhere out in front of the windshield. It was too soon, far too soon.  Ryōta had no idea if his boyfriend even wanted to get remarried, Ryōta wasn't sure he himself wanted to get married, but he floated the idea anyway, "Takaocchi thinks it's only a matter of time before the country recognizes  _all_  marriages." Ryōta let that sink in.

"Huh, how about that." Yukio responded.

* * *

**AN1** : Oh, the research I had to do for this chapter. My Internet search history is forever scarred (even though I left out the gory parts). I know way more about butts (and what can go wrong with them) than I've ever wanted to know. This was the scene I thought of when I decided to write a KiKasa spin-off. There's a small mention of this by Dr. Shin-chan in [chapter 8](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4405481/chapters/11542030) of Dreamers, blink and you'll miss it.

 **AN2:** If you've read my other fics, you'll know that I _love_ awkward bedroom mishaps and I think this couldn't have gone worse for poor Kasa. * _Laughs evilly*_  And that, dear readers, was why the KasaKise had to happen before the KiKasa in this fic. Thank you for reading. Please, pretty please let me know what you think. 


	11. The Third Plague

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryōta gets an itch.

Kurokocchi and Kagamicchi’s engagement party took place at Murasakibaracchi’s restaurant in Roppongi Hills. Coincidentally, it had also been Takaocchi’s birthday. Akashicchi had taken care of most of the details, including the date. 

It was a short commute from Ryōta’s apartment by taxi. An eight minute cab ride later and they had been among the first guests to arrive.

Ordinarily, Ryōta would be fashionably late for a party, but Senpai ran a tight ship. The invitation had said eight o’clock and they’d arrived by 7:58.  

Ryōta had to remember to wish his friend a happy birthday when he saw him, but at the moment the blond’s mouth was otherwise occupied. He and Senpai were holed up in the coat closet at the entrance of the restaurant.

“Knock it off, idiot. This is a _rented_ tux,” Kasamatsu said when Ryōta finally let him up for air.

It was Senpai who was being an idiot, Ryōta thought. How could he possibly expect Ryōta to keep his hands to himself when Senpai looked so dapper in his little rented tux and his grumpy little scowl at having to wear said rented tux. _How could Ryōta possibly resist?_

Senpai’s earlier protests over Ryōta roughly yanking his shirt buttons fell on deaf ears as Ryōta continued to get handsy with his boyfriend.

“Now, now, Senpai,” Ryōta purred. “Don’t play coy with me. I can _tell_ you're interested,” he noted, pressing a pant leg suggestively against a solid object.

“That’s not me, stupid. That’s a coat hanger,” Kasamatsu said.

“Oh,” Ryōta replied feeling a tad embarrassed. He was equal parts annoyed and grateful that it was dark in the cloakroom.  

On the one hand, he was happy that Senpai would hopefully not notice the sudden blush that had sprouted on Ryōta’s face. On the other, if he could see better in here, he wouldn’t have mistaken the rounded shoulder of a wooden hanger for enthusiasm on his boyfriend’s part.

It wasn’t as if Ryōta was love-starved. They’d engaged in a quickie in Ryōta’s shower before getting dressed and coming over here.

It had been a few days since Senpai’s surgery. For obvious reasons, they couldn’t do what had put Senpai in the hospital in the first place -- at least not until the stitches dissolved (and they both got over the trauma of what had been an early morning bloodbath in Ryōta’s bedroom) -- but there was no reason they couldn’t do it the way they’d always done it. And so they had, _repeatedly_.

In fact, Yukio-san hadn’t gone home to Yokohama since his surgery and the blond felt a little bit like he was on a romantic couple's retreat. Falling asleep beside Senpai every night and waking up next to him the following morning was glorious. Ryōta could definitely get used to that. Except he knew his boyfriend was going home tomorrow night because Monday was the start of a new workweek.

Ryōta was determined to make the most of it as he continued to make out with his boyfriend in the cloakroom.

Despite his earlier protests, Kasamatsu took a commanding lead as he pushed his boyfriend up against the wall behind one of the coat racks.  

“Yuki- _ow_ ,” the blond exclaimed, when he got poked on the side with a stray hanger.   

“Sorry,” Kasamatsu said, rubbing Ryōta’s smarting flank. “I guess I got a little too excited.”

“I didn’t say stop, Senpai,” Ryōta pouted.

“Right, right,” Yukio agreed and then he captured Ryōta’s lips again.

Concern for Kasamatsu’s rented tux was cast aside along with the tux itself.

Though they had been one of the first guests to arrive, they were also the last to take their seats.

And while a noticeably disheveled Senpai looked a bit like someone who’d gotten quickly dressed in the dark, Ryōta looked stunning as always.

Kasamatsu had been right to worry about the state of his tux. They’d misplaced a button in the dark cloakroom and as a result, Yukio-san had to hide his shirt behind his dinner jacket the whole night.

###

“Don’t go home Senpai,” Ryōta whined.

Yukio reached for the work pants he’d thrown somewhere on the floor of Ryōta’s bedroom.

Kasamatsu was engaged in an early morning scavenger hunt of sorts, gathering the articles of clothing he'd cast off at various times and in various parts of his boyfriend's apartment during the week. 

“I’m running low on clothes,” Kasamatsu explained, grabbing his undershirt off the lampshade on the light atop the night table. “Besides,” he said to Ryōta. “You’re working tomorrow night. You won’t even be home.”

“Yes, but even if I’m not here, you could still stay.”

Ryōta rather liked the idea of Senpai in his apartment. Sleeping in his bed and showering in his bathroom even if Ryōta would be gone for most of the week. He liked the idea of knowing that Senpai would be here even if Ryōta was far away from home.

“My apartment is soooo much closer to your job. And you’ve got your Tuesday night meeting tomorrow night” -- this was Ryōta’s phrase for Senpai’s anger management classes -- “my apartment is _a lot_ closer to that too.” Ryōta beamed knowing he’d made two very good points.

These days, it was unusual for Ryōta to be taking a flight in the middle of the week.

The blond would be lying if he said there hadn’t been a noticeable dip in his flight hours since he’d started dating Senpai.

In fact, he hadn’t asked (begged) to be on the flight schedule for quite some time now. He would go into work whenever the computer randomly assigned him to a flight, but otherwise he kept his pilot’s uniform neatly pressed in his walk-in-closet. He didn’t go out of his way to be included in the schedule the way he used to.

What had once been a great perk -- picking up and going away for days on end had seemed very appealing for most of Ryōta’s adult life especially given that he was an attractive man who had no trouble pulling an alluring stranger into his hotel bed for the night -- had now turned into a drag.

Now that he was in a relationship, now that he had someone to come home to, he wasn’t all that eager to fly out of the city for the next few days.

He wasn’t feeling the pinch in his bank account mostly because his apartment had been paid off many years ago thanks to a successful modeling career that had started when he was very young and he was still receiving the occasional income stream from that type of work.

The ad campaign he’d most recently done for that _Animal Magnetism_ perfume line was still going strong and would probably pick up even more steam with the fastly approaching holiday season.

Still, it was good to be on the airline’s payroll every once in awhile (and incidentally rack up the mandatory yearly flight hours he was required to meet to keep his commercial pilot’s license). He was loath to leave Senpai during the week knowing his boyfriend had the boys this weekend and because of that, Ryōta wouldn’t be able to see him until the following Monday -- a week from today. Nonetheless, the blond’s number had come up and so he had to head into work tomorrow.

“Here, Senpai.” Ryōta said when Kasamatsu returned from retrieving his tie between the seat cushions in the living room. The blond pulled a small, rectangular box out of the night table.

“What’s this?” Kasamatsu asked, taking hold of the box Ryōta was handing him.

“I wanted to give this to you sooner,” the blond said. “But I didn’t want you to freak out.”     

Kasamatsu took the lid off the gift box and inside was a small keychain in the shape of an airplane with a single key attached to its ring.

“It’s the key to my apartment,” Ryōta needlessly explained. “That way, if you want to spent the night and I’m not here, you can just let yourself --”

Ryōta did not get to finish that sentence because Senpai was kissing him and pushing him onto the bed and _oh maybe Senpai was planning on going into the office a little later this morning_.  

###

Ryōta's phone rang shortly after he'd checked into his hotel room near the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport.

He knew from the cheesy ringtone he’d set that it was Senpai.

Tokyo was three hours and thirty minutes ahead of Mumbai and Ryōta knew his boyfriend would be getting ready for work at this hour. "Good mor --"

"WHAT the hell Ryōta?!" Kasamatsu demanded. There was a woman screaming in the background.

"Senpai?"

"Why didn't you tell me --" the line momentarily cut out "-- was coming over --" and then it cut out again. Ryōta was getting another call.

"Hold on, Senpai," Ryōta said before clicking over to the other line. It was the screaming woman. It took Ryōta a moment to recognize who it was.

"Yuki-kun.” It was the university student that would sometimes clean Ryōta's apartment. “Calm down. What's wrong?"

“There’s a man --,” she began to shriek, “there’s a naked man in your apartment.” Wait, Kise told her. “I have him on hold.”

Kise clicked over to the other line, but apparently Senpai hadn’t noticed his absence because he was still yelling at the blond in absentia.

“-- walked in on me in the shower this morning. Kise, you _idiot_. Why didn’t you tell me your cleaning lady was coming today?”

“Uh, I forgot?” Kise supplied lamely.

The truth was Ryōta never bothered to keep track of Yuki-kun’s schedule.  She came over and cleaned his place whenever she found the time. She worked through an agency and so whenever he got a bill in his email he paid it. Ryōta was fine with this arrangement because up until now he was hardly ever home to dirty the place up either.

Yuki-kun was in college and her classes were at odd times and sometimes she had an assignment, or a student group meetup, or she was studying for an exam, or whatever it was she did with her time. Ryōta had no clue really. He had enough of a hard time keeping track of his own schedule -- and now Senpai’s schedule with the boys -- he didn’t have enough room in that pretty head of his to keep track of anyone else’s.

From what he’d gathered Senpai was holed up in Ryōta’s bedroom and Yuki-kun had locked herself in the half-bath near the entrance of the apartment.

“Okay Senpai,” Ryōta said. “Are you decent?”

“ _Now_ I am. Why?”

The blond snickered because he’d yet to try phone sex with Senpai and he had a feeling Kasamatsu-san would be a ball of embarrassment if he didn’t hang up on Ryōta first. But he was getting sidetracked. 

Ryōta instructed Senpai to put him on speaker and walk over to the surely locked door of the half-bath.

“Yuki-kun,” Ryōta said into the receiver a bit louder than usual. “This is Kasamatsu Yukio, my boyfriend.”

Ryōta heard the click of a door unlocking. “ _Oh_ ,” he heard her say as realization dawned on her. “I thought he was a pervert who broke into your house.”

“Pervert? Who are you calling a pervert?” Ryōta heard Kasamatsu say defensively.  

“When I walked in on you, you were --”

Kasamatsu cut her off. “I was soaping up,” he insisted.

“That’s not what it looked like to me,” Yuki-kun retorted. “It looked like you were tugging on your --”  

“ _Okay_ ,” Kasamatsu cut her off again. “Thanks for clearing everything up, Kise. Have a great rest of the trip,” he said clearly in a rush to end the call.

Ryōta could tell his boyfriend was embarrassed.

“I’ll, um. I’ll see you next week, alright?” Kasamatsu said to Kise.

“Hey, Kise.” Yuki-kun must’ve grabbed the phone from Senpai. “How come you stopped making that guacamole.”

“Guaca --” A red-faced Ryōta could hear Senpai cracking up in the background.  

“Yeah.” Yukio-kun sounded confused by Senpai’s reaction. “You used to make it all the time. It was really good.”

“Uh,” Ryōta said. Clearly he was never going to live this down thanks to his stupid sisters and their stupid prank. “I gotta go,” he said.

And with that he bid farewell to his boyfriend (who sounded like he was in stitches given how loudly he was laughing) and his befuddled cleaning gal.

###

Ryōta's cell phone rang just as he was getting out of the shower.

There was a special level of grime that accumulated on him when he traveled. He wasn't sure if it was real or imaginary. He wasn't sure if other people felt this way too when they moved across time zones. He didn't know if it was the recycled air in the cabin or the unfamiliar air in the street, but he could never feel truly clean until he got home and used his own shower.

He wrapped the hotel towel tightly around his waist and padded across the room barefoot to the desk where his phone was charging.

He didn't recognize the number, but given the commotion four hours earlier he answered it anyway. "Hello." he said.

The caller wasted no time beating around the bush, "Are you my dad's boyfriend?" He sounded young and nervous.

 _Eep_. Ryōta might be having a heart attack. There was only _one_ person who would ask that question. Well, there were two but he didn't think the voice sounded like that of a six-year-old. In a panic, Ryōta resorted to lying.

"No."

"Are you sure?" he asked and something about his demanding tone made Ryōta's heart pause because it reminded him so much of Senpai. "You send him an _awful_ lot of texts and you use a ton of emojis. Some of them have hearts," he pointed out sounding thoroughly disgusted.  

While Hajime may have been onto something, Ryōta wasn’t an idiot. He was not about to incriminate himself.

"Wrong number," he said before quickly ending the call.

And then he turned off his phone in case the caller decided to call back.

He used the phone on the night table in the hotel room to call his boyfriend at work. He had no choice but to immediately call Kasamatsu-san because even though Senpai was going to murder Ryōta later, the man needed a head's up on what was surely going to be a shitstorm waiting for him when he picked the boys up for the weekend.

"Senpai," Ryōta said in a five-alarm panic. "He knows."

"What? Who knows what? What are you talking about?"

"Haji. He called me just now."

"What?! Did he sound upset?"

"I don't know," Ryōta answered truthfully. "I hung up on him."

"You _hung up_ on my kid?" Kasamatsu asked, sounding very irritated as if Ryōta had said he’d pushed Haji into oncoming traffic.

"I'll call you later,” Kasamatsu said, sighing worriedly.

Even though Ryōta couldn’t see the man right now, he was familiar enough with his boyfriend’s mannerisms to picture Senpai running frustrated fingers through his short, spiky hair. “I'm going to call his school now. He probably called you from the phone in the nurse's office. He used to do that when he was upset. Anyway, I gotta go."

Ryōta heard a click and then a dial tone. The line went dead. _Shit._ Senpai sounded very concerned and it made Ryōta's own stomach feel like it was in knots.

The blond was sorry he'd be back in Tokyo in a few days. He was in no hurry to face whatever awaited him on the other side of the continent.

###

It happened that Saturday. Ryōta had just flown into Narita the night before.

He’d scheduled a deep conditioning scalp massage at his salon earlier knowing that Senpai had the boys this weekend anyway. But he’d had to call the salon back and ask to reset it for Monday. This was much more important.  

Ryōta had never been more nervous for a meeting in his whole life. He fussed over everything. His hair, his clothes, his face. You'd think he were meeting the Emperor _and_ the Prime Minister, if the Emperor wore tennis shoes and an unhappy scowl and the Prime Minister was toting around a plush dinosaur.

He met Yukio-senpai's gaze first. Senpai looked anxious too, but there was also hopeful excitement in those beautiful blue eyes of his. And something about that made Ryōta want this to go well too. He knew the stakes were high and that this was very important.

On Senpai’s advice, Ryōta left the presents he’d bought for the boys what felt like eons ago at home. There would be time for that later, Senpai had told him.

As Ryōta approached the trio, Senpai spoke. "Boys. I'd like you to meet someone who's very important to Daddy."

###

Ryōta had gotten a somewhat disjointed reaction from the boys.

The little one had smiled up at Ryōta when Senpai was making introductions, but now that the four of them were seated at a table at the robot cafe that the boys seemed to like, Kasamatsu Hiro seemed more interested in playing with his toy dinosaur and making growling noises than interacting with the handsome stranger sitting beside him or eating the cheese pizza that Senpai was busy cutting into bite-sized pieces on the melamine, robot-shaped plate in front of him.

Kasamatsu Hajime’s reaction to meeting his father’s boyfriend was on the opposite end of the spectrum. Rather than being dispassionate about it like his little brother, Haji was silently glaring daggers at the blond -- a miniature scowling version of Senpai. 

Ryōta squirmed in his seat uncomfortably.

“All done,” Kasamatsu said to his youngest when he finished cutting up the slice of pizza. “Now, I want you to eat all of it.”  

Hiro-chan obediently began to dig in.

“Is _he_ the reason you moved out?” Hajime asked his father, apparently unable to hold his tongue any longer. “Did you and mom get a divorce because of _him_?”

To Ryōta’s mortification, the loud outburst got the attention of some of the nearby diners. The blond slunk low in his seat.

“What?” Senpai sounded startled. “ _No_ ,” he said emphatically because nothing could be further from the truth.  

“Then how come he’s here?” Haji demanded and then he pushed his chair away from the table -- scraping it loudly against the linoleum floor -- and then he ran out.

“ _Hajime._  Come back here.” Kasamatsu said, but apparently Senpai’s captain's voice wasn’t as effective on his kids as it had been on his Kaijō teammates. A frustrated Kasamatsu threw his napkin on the table and ran after his son.

“Stay here with Hiro,” he called out to Ryōta almost as an afterthought.  

Ryōta found himself alone at the table with Senpai’s pre-schooler. He smiled nervously at the kid. Hiro-chan smiled back. His front teeth hadn’t grown back in yet and Ryōta was instantly smitten.

“Are you Daddy’s friend?” The six-year-old looked up at the blond with wide, expectant eyes.

Hiro-chan had a late summer birthday and so, like Ryōta, he would have to wait until the following year before he was old enough to start school in April.

“Yup,” Ryōta affirmed smiling at the little boy and internally begging him to _please like me, please pretty please like me_. “Your dad and I used to play basketball together in school,” he said trying to wow the kid.

Ryōta _would_ have added that he was the team’s ace and a member of the kiseki no sedai, but he didn’t think Hiro-chan would understand something like that or even care.  

“Huh,” Hiro-chan said fidgeting in his seat by swinging little legs that didn’t quite reach the floor yet. “Haji-chan plays basketball,” he told Ryōta. “He wants to be just like Daddy. I’m gonna be like Daddy too.”  

Suddenly it occurred to the blond that Senpai had entrusted him with a very important person. Hiro-chan and his brother were the most important people in Senpai’s life. All at once, Ryōta started getting nervous over Hiro-chan’s age-appropriate fidgeting. _What if he fell off and scraped his leg? What if he hit his head on the table and got a concussion?_

“ _Uh_ , Hiro-chan,” Ryōta said nervously. “Maybe we should just sit still.”

“Okay,” Hiro-chan said amicably and to Ryōta’s surprise the little boy did as he was told. The blond was loving this kid already. _He’s an absolute angel_ , Ryōta thought.

And because he really wanted to make a great impression, he really, really did, he said, “I fly airplanes,” apropos of nothing. _All kids liked planes right? He’d think that was cool._

Quite abruptly, Hiro-chan started giggling and Ryōta self-consciously reached for his napkin and wondered if he had something on his face. “What?” he asked. “What is it?”

“Daddy likes you,” Hiro-chan said all embarrassed like it was the funniest secret anyone had ever shared with him. And then he started to giggle again. “He told me.”

In his excitement, Hiro-chan dropped his toy dinosaur and Ryōta swooped in to pick it up. They accidentally bumped their heads together.

Ryōta held his breath, but to his relief the kid did not cry. Instead he laughed loudly.

 _Whew_. The last thing he needed was a wailing preschooler. He did not want to worry about giving the apple of Senpai’s eye a goose egg.

Ryōta rubbed the top of Hiro-chan’s head with his own head. Grateful the kid seemed no worse for wear.

The blond scratched his own head. And then Hiro-chan did it too, like a little monkey.

Kise beamed. _Cute kid_ , he thought.  

Hiro-chan took a bite of his pizza and then because he felt it was entirely on topic he added “I like dinosaurs. And I like Daddy and Mommy and Haji and Ghidorah and Uncle Umi and --” Hiro-chan started rattling off the people in his life.

“Uncle Umi” had become the newest addition to the family when the children’s mother got remarried. He was an older man who had college age children from a prior marriage. He was also Hiro-chan’s biological father, but Ryōta wasn’t going to break the news to the kid now or ever. He wasn’t sure how Senpai was going to handle that hornet’s nest when the time came either.

“I like Ghidorah too,” Ryōta responded.

“ _You_ know Ghidorah?!” Hiro-chan’s eyes went wide, as if Ryōta had said he’d known a long lost family member of his or something. The little boy looked mightily impressed by this _far_ more than anything Ryōta had told him.

“Ghidorah’s the best,” Hiro-chan effused.

Ryōta couldn’t agree more. He’d only met the children’s golden retriever once, but he was quite smitten with her.  

“Daddy said we couldn’t bring her to the restaurant today. When we go back to Daddy’s apartment, I’m gonna pet her. Daddy said we can buy her a treat on the way home.”

And then quite unexpectedly, Hiro-chan turned into a chatter box. Opening up to Ryōta and smiling easily.   

“I have to pee,” Hiro-chan announced loudly, interrupting his own chatter.

And _shit_ , Ryōta started to panic. Senpai hadn’t left him any instructions on what to do.

“Can you hold it?” Ryōta asked hopefully.

“I have to pee!” Hiro-chan said loudly and more impatiently. Ryōta noticed the outburst had gotten the attention of some of the other diners.

Ryōta was quickly trying to rack his brain thinking of his younger nieces and nephews, trying to think back to his own toilet training timeline. Hiro-chan was six. Did six-year-olds go to the bathroom by themselves? He really hoped so. “Is that something you can do on your own or --”

Ryōta was rescued from his predicament because just then Senpai and Hajime returned.

Somehow Hiro-chan managed to put his little bladder on hold because even a tender-aged Hiro-chan could tell something was amiss.

It was obvious that Hajime had been crying. Although he’d dried his tears, his eyes and mouth were still red and he wiped the snot under his nose with the sleeve of his shirt.

It broke Ryōta’s heart to see the kid like this. He didn’t want to see Haji miserable and the worst part was that it was because of him.

“Kise,” Kasamatsu said addressing his boyfriend with an unusual amount of formality. “Haji has something he’d like to say to you.”

Haji did not look like he had anything to say to Ryōta. In fact, Haji looked like he wanted nothing more than to see Ryōta disappear into thin air right there at the robot cafe.   

Kasamatsu gave his first born a gentle nudge.

“Go on,” Senpai said to Haji as if they’d had a talk and gone over a script.

Kasamatsu Hajime walked over to stand in front of Ryōta and bowed deeply. And then he apologized to the man he’d just met today for having run off, earlier.

Senpai gave a still-somewhat-shaken Hajime a hug and told him he was proud of him for owning up to a mistake.

Ryōta was about to tell the both of them that, _really_ it was no big deal. It wasn’t as if he’d been affronted by Hajime’s behavior to begin with. But it was clear that Senpai was using this as a teaching moment for his young son.

And then without warning, Hiro-chan broke the ice at the table.

“Uh-oh,” he piped up. “I had an accident.” And then he started to cry.

“Why didn’t you say something, buddy?” Yukio-san asked crouching down so he could be at eye level with his pre-schooler.

“I did,” said a teary-eyed Hiro-chan. “I tried to tell _him_.” The little traitor pointed an accusatory finger at Ryōta.

Kasamatsu looked at Ryōta as if the blond had been the one to wet himself. And the annoyance in Senpai’s disapproving glare did actually make Ryōta want to wet his pants.

“Why didn’t you take him to the bathroom?” Yukio-san asked as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Ryōta opened and closed his mouth a few times like a very pretty, blond saltwater fish, but really he had no words to say to that.

“Stay here with Haji for a bit,” Senpai said to Ryōta. “Hiro-chan and I are going to buy some robot undies and see what they have by way of pants,” Senpai said eyeing the merchandise store that was adjacent to the robot cafe.

“See if you can flag down a waiter for paper towels and bleach, I’ll clean up after Hiro-chan and I get back.”    

Senpai needn't have bothered. The wait staff at the child-friendly restaurant was apparently used to these types of accidents. They brought a new chair and booster seat to the table and cleaned up the puddle Hiro-chan had left with ruthless efficiency.

Ryōta eyed the little boy sitting across the table from him cautiously. Kasamatsu Hajime looked so much like his father he noted, not for the first time -- short, spiky black hair and sharp steel blue eyes. He resembled Senpai in other ways too -- strong willed and determined and maybe even a bit sensitive even as he tried to mask that aspect of his personality. 

“I won’t take him away from you,” Ryōta said. “If that’s what you’re worried about. I wouldn’t want to, but I couldn’t even if I tried.”

The little boy remained silent, pretending to study the place mat in front of him as thick tears streamed down his cheeks.  

###

Senpai was with the boys the rest of the weekend and so Ryōta kept himself busy.

He was not going to be one of those boyfriends who was a hanger-on. Or at least that’s what Senpai had told him. Senpai’s time with the boys was just that. _His_ time with the boys. And while Ryōta would be invited to join them from time to time, he was _not_ going to be with the boys every other weekend the way Senpai was.

Ryōta scratched his head as he pondered recent developments.

He had _finally_ met Senpai’s boys. A month ago -- _hell_ , a week ago -- that would’ve seemed an impossibility.

It seemed that Senpai had been intent on keeping two very important parts of his life separate. But Haji had figured things out much too quickly and forced his father’s reluctant hand.

And if Ryōta were giving it an honest assessment, he would have said that meeting the boys could’ve gone better.

To sum it up briefly, Ryōta had made both of them cry and one of them wet his pants.

 _Yeah_ , Ryōta thought. It could’ve _definitely_ gone better.

But Senpai sounded upbeat when he called Ryōta on the phone Sunday night.

“Are you outside, Senpai?” Ryōta asked because every once in awhile his boyfriend’s words were cut-off by the sound of the trains approaching the station.

“Yeah,” Kasamatsu told him. “I’m out on the balcony.” Ryōta recalled that narrow strip of concrete facing the tracks where they ate ramen noodles from styrofoam cups that first night Ryōta had visited Senpai’s apartment. It made him feel homesick for a place he’d never actually lived in.  

“The boys and Ghidorah are asleep. I didn’t want to wake them,” Kasamatsu explained.

“Isn’t it cold outside, Senpai?”   

“It’s alright,” Yukio-san told him. Even so Ryōta couldn’t help but worry about his boyfriend. He hoped he’d at least wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. “You did great yesterday,” Kasamatsu said and it was the last thing Ryōta had expected out of his boyfriend’s mouth.

“It doesn’t feel that way,” Ryōta said truthfully.  

Kasamatsu sighed into the receiver. “You have to give them some time,” he said referring to his boys. “Hiro-chan already likes you.”

“I made him wet his pants,” Ryōta reminded his boyfriend.

“He’s six. It happens sometimes. He was excited about his new robot underwear and pajamas.” The robot shop next the cafe did not sell pants and so Senpai had to make do. Hiro-chan went home wearing the bottom part of a pajama set that Senpai had bought him.

“He’s a glass half-full little guy,” Kasamatsu said with a chuckle. It was clear that Senpai was very fond of his children.

And then he turned serious. “Haji is having a hard time with his mom and I splitting up. He’s having a hard time accepting things he doesn’t quite understand and sometimes he lashes out. I’m sorry he had that outburst at the cafe,” he told Ryōta.

“It’s alright, Senpai,” Ryōta said. He really didn’t need an apology and he’d felt uncomfortable with one.

“It’s not alright,” Kasamatsu told Kise. “That’s not how he was raised and he knows better than that. Believe me, we have a _very_ long talk when we got home and I don’t think it’ll happen again.”

Kasamatsu was quiet for a moment and then he spoke again. “I think given his age, there’s a lot of things he’s confused about. And I explained to him that just because I’m dating a man now doesn’t mean I didn’t love his mother at one point.”

Ryōta swallowed thickly. He knew that already. It wasn’t new information -- of course at one point his boyfriend had been in love with the woman he’d once been married to -- but it still hurt to hear it.

“And who I develop romantic feelings for, doesn’t have any bearing on who he will end up liking. I think he was worried about that too. I told him it doesn’t work that way.”

It sounded like Senpai and his eldest had done a lot of talking after Ryōta had left the cafe.

“Anyway, I think it went about as well as expected,” Kasamatsu said. “Listen, I know it can’t be easy for you to date someone with kids.”

Senpai was right. It _hadn’t_ been easy on Ryōta. The schedule alone meant he couldn’t see his boyfriend whenever he wanted, meant that dates and evenings cuddled up in front of the television always lost out to parent-teacher conferences and science fairs, Haji’s basketball games and Hiro-chan’s soccer matches.  

But Senpai and the boys were a packaged deal. Ryōta knew that. And he was willing to make the sacrifices that kept Senpai in his life.

“How about the boys and I play you three-on-one on the basketball court, next time?” Kasamatsu offered.

Ryōta smiled into his phone. “I’d really like that, Senpai,” he said truthfully.  

###

On Monday evening, Ryōta dutifully went to his rescheduled hair appointment.

The boys were back with their mother and Senpai would be spending the night at Ryōta’s after work.

The blond had gone to the same high-end salon for years now, ever since he’d moved into this neighborhood in Shibuya.

He was a regular customer and they knew him well. The flirty receptionist had managed to squeeze him in on an already tight schedule as the last appointment of the day.

The woman that did his deep conditioning treatments had done so for years. She also worked there as a masseuse. She worked magic with her fingers and as far as Ryōta was concerned she walked on water.

After a bit of friendly chit chatter, Ryōta reclined back onto the padded chair and leaned his head over the basin of the hair washing station having done this a million times.  

She wet his hair and started lathering it up with the same coconut-scented shampoo Ryōta used at home. It smelled heavenly and felt even more amazing. Especially since Ryōta’s head had been itching him all day.

And then all of a sudden, she stopped.

“What?” Ryōta asked opening his eyes. The disgusted look on her face started to worry him. “What is it?”

### 

Kise Ryōta had only ever used salon-grade styling products on his beautiful blond hair. This stuff he’d picked up from the pharmacy on his way home was definitely _not_ salon grade, it was more like _industrial_ grade. It smelled like a chemical plant cleaner.

 _Oh why did this have to happen to him?_ He bemoaned his predicament.

Ryōta towel dried his hair in front of the large mirror in his bathroom. Just as he suspected, _flat as a pancake_.

He sighed miserably. He was _so_ humiliated. But there was no helping it. He knew what he had to do next. If _he’d_ gotten it, then that meant Kasamatsu-san might have gotten it too.

Ryōta called Senpai who was still finishing up at work and cried about it.

It was only then that Senpai told him he’d received a call from his ex-wife today after she had picked up Hiro-chan midday from his nursery school.

The school seemed to have had a significant outbreak and nearly half of the kids in Hiro-chan’s age group had been sent home early that day.

Thankfully, Hajime didn’t seem to have gotten it, but that didn’t spare him from having his hair washed out with the same stuff Ryōta had to use as a preventative measure.

The dog along with most of the bed linens in Senpai’s former house had been sent out to be professionally cleaned.

Senpai would have to do the same thing when he got home to his apartment tomorrow.

The only reason Senpai didn’t think to mention it to Ryōta was because he didn’t think his boyfriend would’ve had the occasion to come in contact with Hiro-chan’s head during their lunch at the robot cafe.

 _Oh but Ryōta had_. He’d even rubbed their heads together at the table.   

The blond spent most of the evening locked in his bathroom. He didn’t come out even when he heard Senpai let himself in using the key Ryōta had given him and call out his name.

"Go home Senpai," he said to Kasamatsu through the closed bathroom door.

He knew Senpai wasn’t paying any attention to his wishes because he could hear Senpai turn on the television in Ryōta’s bedroom and changing the channels until it landed on the baseball game.

About half an hour later, Kasamatsu-san knocked on Ryōta’s door. “You want dinner?” he asked.

"I'm hideous." Ryōta responded as if that was in anyway a response to Yukio-san’s inquiry.

Moments later, he heard Senpai turned the game off. For a moment, Ryōta thought that Senpai may have walked away.

But then he saw his end of the doorknob turn, or try to anyway. Ryōta had had the foresight to lock it.

"Kise, open the door,” he said knocking on it. “C’mon. How bad could it possibly be?”

Ryōta turned the lock. Kasamatsu must've heard the small click because he reached for the doorknob again. This time the door opened.

"Don't look at me, Senpai," Ryōta warned.

Bushy eyebrows shot up, steel-blue eyes went wide. His hand went to cover his mouth because whatever he did, he mustn't laugh.

It was then that Ryōta noticed the brown paper bag in Senpai’s other hand.

“Sorry my kid gave you head lice,” he said, stifling a chuckle. “Unfortunately, they don’t make greeting cards for that so I brought you this instead,” he said.

Kasamatsu brought the paper bag up so that it was almost at eye level with Ryōta and pulled a plastic bottle out of it with much fanfare the way a magician would pull a rabbit out of a hat.

It was that same awful-smelling shampoo Ryōta had just used to wash his hair.

The blond pouted at Senpai. There was _far_ too much amusement in those blue eyes of his.

"I don't know what it is,” Ryōta started to say, “but ever since we got together, it's been like _this_. First I hurt my back, then it was the hemor --"

"I _told_ you not to say that word again --"

"-- now this," the blond bemoaned. “It’s like the Seven Plagues of Egypt have descended upon us.”

"Ten," Kasamatsu corrected.

"What?"

"There were _ten_ plagues. You said seven."

"Are you sure, Senpai?"

"I'm pretty sure."

"Oh." Ryōta said. Senpai had gotten far better marks than him in school. 

Kasamatsu smiled, exasperated and fond all at the same time.

"Come here," he said and when Ryōta shifted only a few centimeters towards him, Kasamatsu grabbed his arm and pulled him all the way and then he embraced him.

They stood like this for a moment in Ryōta’s bathroom and then Senpai broke the silence.

“Are you alright?” Kasamatsu asked, sounding concerned.

Ryōta nodded and thanks to their proximity and their height difference, the blond bumped Kasamatsu on the nose with his chin.

"Hey," Kasamatsu complained. "Watch what you’re doing," he said, but there was no heat to it.

"Senpai?"

"What is it Kise?"

Ryōta hesitated a bit before asking, "What if I go bald?"

"I'm pretty sure no one's ever gone bald from using head lice shampoo? That’s not how it works."

Kasamatsu nabbed the fluffy towel from Ryōta and took over hair drying duty. Ryōta could tell that Senpai was a dad (and a dog owner) because he was very good and very thorough at towel drying Ryōta's hair.

When he was done, Senpai balled up the towel and threw it in the nearby laundry hamper in a move that reminded Ryōta of their Kaijōdays.

The copycat winced, "How's it look?"

"Like you got your head stuck in a wind tunnel," Kasamatsu said with a fond smile.

Ryōta tensed up. "Don't worry Senpai, I can fix this he said," referring to his hair. "I just need to put some product in it. And, and --"

Kasamatsu grabbed Ryōta's hand and pulled the blond back towards him.

"Wait," he said. "Where are you going?"

"To go fix my hair," Ryōta replied miserably. He had more styling products in the guest bathroom. He hated not looking his best and not looking his best in front of Senpai was even more unacceptable. It was making Ryōta feel all kinds of angst. Not to mention the strong chemical smell left behind by the medicated shampoo was unsettling.

Senpai did not let go of Ryōta's hand. In fact, he pulled the blond closer, "I didn't say I hated it." He wrapped his arms around Ryōta's bare torso and because Ryōta was so darn tall Yukio had to look up to maintain eye contact.

"In fact, I kind of like it."

"But, I look terrible," Ryōta retorted.

Yukio planted a small kiss on Ryōta's right shoulder. "Yes, but 'terrible' is a good look on you."

Ryōta tried to pull out of Senpai's bear-hug, but Senpai's compact body was stronger than it looked. "Kise," Kasamatsu said. All traces of playfulness were gone from his tone and it made Ryōta stiffen. "You don't have to do this," he said.

"Do what?" Ryōta asked, feeling terrified of the coming answer.

"Get dolled up," he said. "For me."

"I don't --" Ryōta started to protest.

" _Yeah_ , you do." Kasamatsu said. "You set the alarm on your phone an hour and a half before I wake up just so you can brush your teeth and shave your face and style your hair, then you crawl back into bed just before my alarm clock goes off."

Ryōta felt his cheeks heat up. He did not have a response to that so he remained very quiet.

Yukio tightened his grip on the blond. "It's important to me that you know that I don't care about morning breath, or stubble or gunk in your eyes when you wake up," he said. 

Ryōta was starting to squirm.  

“Idiot," Kasamatsu said looking up at the very tall man in his arms. It didn’t sound like an insult. It sounded like a term of endearment. "Why are you still trying to impress me? Because really and truly I have no clue why you’re trying so hard Kise Ryōta. You’ve already got me. I'm here, aren't I?"

"Don't get me wrong. You're a knockout. On a scale of one to ten you're an eleven and we both know it. But that's not why I'm with you. I like you for you."

"For me?" Ryōta asked because somehow that seemed so insufficient. No one had ever liked Kise for being Kise.

"I mean it," Kasamatsu said. "I don't care about the eyeliner or the designer clothes or your perfect hair.

"Senpai, I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything, stupid." Yukio ran his bony fingers through Ryōta's stiff, chemical treated hair and pulled him down for a hard kiss.

Ryōta liked when Senpai kissed him like this and then Yukio pulled the taller man into the adjacent room, pushed him onto the bed before making quick work of the towel wrapped around his boyfriend's waist so that the blond wasn't wearing a damn thing.

"Why are you so surprised? I told you I loved you, didn't I? Do you think I go around saying those words lightly?"

Senpai had said those words exactly once, the day they went to the park with Ghidorah. "You said that you loved me _and_ the dog."

That had been true, Yukio-senpai had included Ghidorah when he'd made that statement.

"You get that I love you in a different way, from the way I love the dog, right?" 

And then it dawned on Ryōta that when Senpai had said he loved him that day at the park, he'd meant that he was _in love_ with him and _oh my goodness why hadn't he realized that?_  He didn't even say it back to Kasamatsu-senpai at the time because he hadn't known that that was what Senpai meant. At the time, Ryōta had just figured that Senpai had been saying that he cared about him, the way he cared about Ghidorah and oh my goodness Ryōta was _so happy_ his eyes were welling up.

"Senpai," he exclaimed, overwhelmed with emotion. Ryōta nearly knocked the wind out of Kasamatsu with how forceful he'd pull the man onto his chest. The blond wrapped his arms around Yukio-san and peppered his face with kisses.

"I didn't know," he said. "I didn't know that's what you meant when you first said it."

Ryōta's heart swelled with happiness and he was having a hard time getting the words out because he was so emotional. "I love you _so much_ , Senpai. I didn't say it then because I didn't know that's what you meant. I love you, I love you, I love you!"

He’d expected Senpai to tell him to knock it off, to tell him he was being too noisy or that he should calm down, but Senpai did no such thing. He leaned in to kiss Ryōta's lips. "I'm glad to hear it," he said.  

And then Kasamatsu started cracking up. "That stuff really does smell awful," he said of Kise's shampoo. 

“Senpai’s so _mean_ ,” Ryōta whined.

“Come here, idiot,” Yukio said, grabbing Ryōta by the shoulders and flipping them both so that they were on their sides. “What’s the point if you can’t laugh about it, right?”

Ryōta furrowed his eyebrows. He wasn’t convinced by that life philosophy. “You weren’t singing that tune a few weeks ago when you had hem --”

“Ep, ep, ep,” Kasamatsu said covering Ryōta’s mouth with both hands to keep the blond from saying that dreadful word. “That’s different. That was a medical condition.”

Ryōta didn’t really see how that was different.

“It’s rude to laugh at people’s illnesses,” Senpai said teasingly. “Besides, it’s too soon, _much_ too soon to bring that up.”

And then Senpai removed his hands from Ryota's mouth because there were other things he wanted to do with them.

* * *

 **AN1:** The [Gundam Cafe](http://en.japantravel.com/tokyo/gundam-cafe-odaiba/2903) is a real thing. It's in Odaiba where they have a giant statue of the mobile suit robot out front and he blows smoke and his eyes light up at certain times during the night. He gathers quite the crowd of onlookers. I was fortunate enough to catch the little display when I was in Tokyo last year. Sadly, I did not see  _this_  [display of awesomeness](http://geeknation.com/huge-smoke-breathing-godzilla-christmas-tree-in-japan/) because I wasn't there at Christmastime, but I think Kasa and the boys would've loved it.  

 **AN2:** So sometimes my mind goes straight to the gutter. While looking up names for my OCs, I stumbled upon Kise's first name which has the following definition: "From Japanese _涼 (ryou)_  'cool, refreshing' . . .  **combined with _太 (ta)_  'thick, big.**'" This can't be a coincidence, can it? I'd like to think the only logical conclusion we can gleam from this is that Kise being a tripod is definitely canon. 

 **AN3:** Our favorite puppy finally met the boys!!! I feel like this was a huge (and necessary) achievement for cementing Ryōtain Senpai's life. This was not an easy chapter to write because the boys are _so_ important to the story, even though they are barely in it. I wanted them to be likeable, but at the same time I wanted them to be believable. These are two relatively young children who are grappling (in their own way) with some pretty adult stuff and I think realistically Kise isn't going to fit into this dynamic very easily at least at first. I think that he'll have to work hard to win the boys over (I don't think Hiro-chan quite understands Kise's relationship to Daddy, so naturally he lets his guard down far more easily than Haji).

I'm still not sure if I struck the right cord (get it? guitar pun cause Kasa . . . well, never mind). But on a serious note (pfft!). Sorry, I couldn't resist.

But seriously folks, I think a lot of the story is riding on this scene and I hope I managed to convey what I had set out to do with this chapter which was to lay the groundwork. This will probably be a positive and lifelong relationship between Kise and the boys, but realistically the three of them are not quite there yet. Familial bonds aren't formed overnight, well most of the time (Senpai and his ex-wife seemed to have done just that when they ended up with Haji). Kise and the boys have only just met and they need time to get to know each other better. The boys (Haji especially) will need to learn that Kise can fit into their family dynamic without threatening the relationship they have with their father. _Yeah_ , this turned out to be far heavier than what I had originally envisioned for Fools back when it was going to be part of Dreamers and just be a sideshow comedy of (bedroom) ~~horrors~~ errors.

Whaa! Sorry for the rambling author's notes. This is the second to the last chapter. One more update and we're done with the story.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please share them with me. 


	12. Domestic Arrivals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then suddenly, it sort of all fell into place.

For all the buildup and all the fanfare and that one trip to the hospital, it sort of just happened on its own one night. 

Senpai came to Ryōta’s apartment on Friday night after a dinner meeting with clients instead of going home to Yokohama. He’d been doing that a lot lately. When he didn’t have the boys, more often than not, Kasamatsu-san would spend the night at Ryōta’s place.  

It was late and Ryōta was already in bed though he wasn’t asleep. He was watching a Korean drama Takaocchi had recommended. The days when the blond could fall asleep easily without Senpai beside him seemed to be long gone.

Kasamatsu showered and then he came to bed. And what were supposed to be good night kisses suddenly and unexpectedly turned heated.

###

Ryōta set the pace. Slow. _Achingly_ slow and steady at first. He was still a bit freaked out over what had happened the last time they had tried it this way.

And then, as so many things between them did, it turned playful, if a little menacing.    

“Kise, you bastard. Knock it off and fuck me properly,” Kasamatsu demanded.

“Senpai,” Ryōta tutted looking down at the man beneath him on the bed, “such a filthy mouth.”

“Kise, I swear to fuck,” Kasamatsu cursed. “I’m going to kick your ass with this foot, if you don’t,” Kasamatsu pressed the heel of said foot against Ryōta’s bare, pert derrière in a not so subtle hint to “pick up the fucking pace already.”

“Goodness, Senpai,” Ryōta tisked. “So impatient. And that mouth," he complained. "You kiss your boyfriend with that mouth?”   

The blond couldn’t keep the smile off his face. Neither of them could, actually. Despite his filthy threats Kasamatsu was looking up adoringly at his impossible boyfriend.  

They kissed each other and Ryōta began to move again.

Kise knew what he was doing, _of course he did._ One didn’t rack up so many hours in the sack without picking up a thing or two, especially if one had been blessed with Perfect Copy.

“Oh fuck!” Kasamatsu shouted. “Do that again!”

Ryōta smiled smugly. He knew _exactly_ what he had done. He knew what it felt like to get that surge of pleasure at having hit that bundle of nerves.

Kise did it again. He brushed up against Senpai’s sweet spot.  

“Like this Senpai?” he asked with feigned innocence.

“Yes, fuck! That! Keep doing _thaaat._ ”

Kasamatsu’s back was arching off the bed now and Ryōta didn’t want his good time to end so quickly.

Also, it was fun to hear Senpai beg for it.

The blond started missing on purpose. It did not go unnoticed.

Yukio gathered his thick eyebrows frowning threateningly at his boyfriend. “Keep toying with me, Bastard. I’m taking score. And when the tables are turned. You’re going to be begging _me_ for mercy.”

“Senpai’s so mean,” Ryōta pouted.

Kasamatsu leaned up to kiss Ryōta’s mouth, fisting his fingers into coconut-scented blond hair. He pushed a hot and insistent tongue into Ryōta.

Ryōta smiled against Kasamatsu’s lips. This was so sweet and so hot at the same time. It was _so_ them. Being with Senpai was like nothing Ryōta had ever experienced before.

Ryōta was so happy he felt like his heart was too big for his chest.

He pushed his boyfriend back onto the bed, gathered Yukio’s hands and pinned them above the man’s head. Ryōta held Yukio-san  in place. He interlaced their fingers and started thrusting into his boyfriend in earnest.

“Yes, yes. Fuck yes!” Senpai was being so _vocal_. And a potty mouth to boot.

The blond had no intentions of shushing his boyfriend. He didn’t care _how_ loud Yukio got. To the contrary, he couldn’t get enough of it. He didn’t care if his neighbors overheard them, living next to Kise for so long they were probably used to that kind of noise coming from his apartment anyway.

Ryōta picked up the pace.

Soon Kasamatsu was too wrecked to care that he was freely and loudly shouting Ryōta’s praises.

“You’re so amazing. You’re so _fucking_ amazing. Aww, fuck,” he said. “Fuck. Do that again! You feel _so good_. Oh fuck! You feel so unbelievably fucking good. Oh fuuuuck ---”

And then Yukio was being so thoroughly fucked, he couldn’t even string together a coherent sentence as his toes curled against Ryōta’s unbelievably perfect ass and he was shouting nonsense at his boyfriend’s high ceilings.  

###   

The following morning, the landline in Ryōta’s apartment rang loud, persistent and obscenely early.

Senpai must've been half asleep or still thoroughly sex-addled because he reached over to the night table beside him and answered the phone without even thinking.

"Hello," he croaked, his voice was rough with sleep as he rubbed the grit out of his eyes and swallowed thickly.

Moments later, he leaned over Ryōta.

"It's your mother,” he said handing a shocked Ryōta the cordless phone and mouthing the words, _I'm so sorry_.

“M-mom?” he said wearily into the receiver. He could hear Mochi barking disapprovingly in the background.

###

Two hours later they were both fully dressed and sharing the cramped loveseat in the parlor room at Ryōta’s parents’ house in Yokohama.

Mochi had made himself _very much_ at home on Senpai’s lap.

A pouty Ryōta was staring daggers at the Pomeranian.

It was bad enough the possessive pooch had Kise's mother wrapped around his little paw, he was now making puppy dog eyes at his boyfriend too. Mochi was sticking out his tiny tongue trying to look all cute as he panted at Yukio-san. Ryōta rolled his eyes at the appallingly needy and attention-seeking behavior.

“He must smell Ghidorah on me,” Kasamatsu said to Ryōta’s perplexed parents by way of explanation.

The dog was clearly taken with the handsome stranger much to the annoyance of the  _other_ blond vying for Yukio-san's affections.

Senpai petted Mochi’s sable fur and the dog yipped approvingly, before panting happily again.

“Yes," Ryōta agreed. "It's like you'll need pliers to pry him off," he commented giving the furry interloper the side eye and crossing his arms over his chest in a huff.

Ryōta's father was a handsome man, a silver-haired fox who’d aged like fine wine. He was a retired advertising executive and seemed genuinely interested in Kasamatsu’s architecture projects, especially the new Matsumoto resort.

Like her husband, Ryōta’s mother was an older woman. After all, there was a significant age gap between Ryōta and his sisters. But she was stylish and elegant and didn't look her age.

Ryōta and his sisters all looked alike, but it was hard to tell which comely parent they inherited their good looks from because the three of them were a perfect amalgamation of the already very handsome couple.   

And while his father was content to talk shop with his son’s boyfriend, Ryōta’s mother had more practical concerns.

"Yukio-kun,” she said. “Ryōta tells me you have two little boys.” From her casual tone, one would think Ryōta gabbed to his mother about his boyfriend _all the time_ when in fact she'd only just learned of Yukio's existence this morning. Moments ago when Kasamatsu had excused himself to use the restroom, Ryōta's mother had seized the opportunity to grill her son about his boyfriend. 

“Yes.” Kasamatsu answered politely. “Hajime is twelve and Hiro is six.”

He smiled his crinkle-eyed smile when he spoke of his sons.

“And how long have you been divorced?”

 _“Motherrr!”_ Ryōta whined.

“What? It's a legitimate question,” she said defensively to her youngest.

"You're going to scare him away!” Ryōta protested.

Kasamatsu chuckled. "It's alright,” he said to his boyfriend. “She's just looking out for you. I can appreciate that. After all, I’m a parent too. And if this were Hajime or Hiro, I’d be wondering the same thing.”

And then he turned his attention to Ryōta’s mother. "I can assure you. I'm not going back to my ex. And more importantly I'm crazy about your son.” 

Evidently this was the right thing to say because Ryōta’s mother beamed with approval.

Brunch was an elaborate, though hastily prepared affair, given that none of the four participants had anticipated it when they had gone to bed last night. 

Afterward, Kasamatsu had offered to clear the table and while Ryōta wouldn’t ordinarily do such things, he stayed behind to help his boyfriend.

“Senpai, you're _craaaaazy_ about me, huh?” the blond said when they were alone and loading the dishwasher with the last of the garden themed plates. Ryōta was echoing the words his boyfriend had said to his mother. There was a teasing lilt in the blond's voice and it was plain to see that he was _very_ happy. 

Introducing Senpai to his parents had not been planned. It had sort of just happened because Senpai had absentmindedly answered the phone that morning and once the boyfriend was out of the bag, Ryōta’s mother would not take no for an answer. But Ryōta thought it couldn't have gone better.   

They were in Ryōta’s parents' bright and sunny kitchen. The two of them were wearing frilly, pink floral aprons they had borrowed from Ryōta’s mother over their clothes. 

Ryōta was half tempted to splash Senpai with water from the pullout faucet, but he didn't think murdering their only son would ingratiate Senpai into Ryōta's parents' good graces.

Kasamatsu blushed adorably. "Shut up. If you keep teasing me about it, I'm going to take it back.”

“Senpai! You wouldn't,” Ryōta said horrified.

Kasamatsu smiled his crinkle-eyed smile at his ridiculous boyfriend. “I couldn't if I tried,” he said.

Taking advantage of the fact that it was just the two of them in the kitchen, Ryōta stole a kiss from Kasamatsu-san's lips as they stood side-by-side in front of the wide double sink wearing matching yellow rubber kitchen gloves and washing Ryōta’s mother’s delicate stemware by hand.

“How’s your beautiful butt doing this morning?” the blond asked. After all, last night had been Senpai’s first time switching roles with Ryōta.

Yukio-san gave his boyfriend a cheeky glance, he made sure they were truly alone before stating, “If your mother hadn't called so early, I would've asked you for another go.”

Suddenly in a hurry, the blond quickly put the last of the expensive stemware on the drying rack. He pulled the rubber kitchen gloves off his hands, yanked the apron strings tied around his neck and waist, and turned to his boyfriend. “C'mon," he said pulling Yukio-san's arm. "Let's say our goodbyes. We need to get back."

"My apartment's _much_ closer," Yukio-san helpfully volunteered. "We can stop at the konbini for supplies on the way there."

“Senpai!” Ryōta said in a feigned scandalized tone over his boyfriend's eagerness to fall back into the sheets and Kasamatsu chuckled. 

###

“Ryō-chan!” came the chorus of purposely teasing sing-songy voices.

Kise wanted to hang up the phone. He knew this was coming, but that didn't make it any more pleasant.  

 _Ugh_ , the only thing worse than a call from one of his sisters, was a call from _both_ of them on a three-way.

“Stop calling me that,” he whined. “That’s _not_ my name.” He _hated_ that childhood moniker.

“What do you want anyway?” he asked. He supposed they’d talked to their mother.

“We called to congratulate you little brother on finally bringing home a man,” the oldest piped up. “By the way Risa, I owe you 10,000 yen.”

“Whaaaa!” Ryōta protested. “You guys bet on me getting serious with someone?"

“Pfft!” Risa laughed. “Don’t be stupid. Who’d make a losing bet like that?”

“What do you mean ‘a losing bet?’” Ryōta protested. “I’ll have you know I’ve brought _plenty_ of girls home to meet mom.”

His sisters laughed in unison.

“Yeah and the only people who actually bought that you were genuinely into them were those idiot girls,” the oldest retorted. And then they both started laughing again.

The two of them invariably ganged up on Ryōta. It was always like this.   

“So mean!” Ryōta started to whine and then he quieted down. “Wait. Are you saying mom knew this whole time?”

“We’re saying _everyone_ knew. You’re not exactly subtle little brother and well, you’re very flamboyant.”

A pouty Ryōta ignored the last comment because he too was very subtle and whatever the opposite of flamboyant was. Ordinarily he’d go into histrionics, but something had caught his attention.

“What did you bet on, then?” he asked.

“What we bet on,” said the oldest. “Is that you’d finally admit to mom and dad that you liked guys.”

“Aww, Risa,” Ryōta cooed to his younger sister. “And you won the bet ‘cause you had faith in me.”

Risa started laughing again. “Hardly,” she said. “We couldn’t both place a wager on ‘never,’ so I had to bet on never minus one day.”

The both of them started laughing at their baby brother again.

“So meaaaaan!” Ryōta protested and then he thought he’d get back at them. “We’ll I read your diaries, you know. And I followed all your advice and so there, I landed a man.”

The laughter on the phone only got louder.

“Ryōta, honey,” the oldest started to say, before pausing. “I’m sorry. I’m getting side stitches. _Ouch_.” She was clearly struggling to get the words out. “You know those diaries were fake, right?”

 _“What?!”_ No, Ryōta had known no such thing.

“We figured it out right away. That you’d snuck into our rooms and read our diaries. So we decided to make them wildly exaggerated and fill them with all sorts of icky TMI stuff our snot-nosed little brother would _not_ want to read.”

“We’d thought for sure we’d gross you out and teach you a lesson about not snooping around.” Risa added. “But surprisingly you kept coming back for more. After a while we got bored and started filling it with antiquated dating advice like waiting for the guy to make the first move. We thought for sure you'd figure it out."

And then his older sister realized something. “There must’ve been over 300 guys in those diaries! There weren’t even that many boys in our high school. Did you _really_ think we made _that_ many conquests?!” 

Ryōta shrugged. His sisters had been called not so nice things in high school. He just figured that there might have been some truth to all those ugly rumors. “I didn’t care,” he answered truthfully. “You guys are my sisters. So I wasn't going to think badly of you or anything.”

“Okay, that’s oddly sweet,” said the oldest. “But there were over _three hundred_ guys in there, idiot. If that were true, when would we have even found the time to go to school or go to modeling shoots?”

“Or walk straight,” Risa added with a snicker. “Did you _really_ use that shit advice we put in there?”

“Yup,” Ryōta said.

“And it actually worked?” Risa asked disbelievingly.

“There were a few hiccups,” Ryōta admitted. And _no_ , he was not going to give his sisters any more ammo to make fun of him.    

“We’re surprised. We didn’t think you’d be willing to date someone with kids,” said the oldest.

“Yeah,” added Risa. “We didn’t think you’d want to be a _step-boyfriend_ ,” she teased. 

“There’s no such thing as a step-boyfriend,” Ryōta responded in a know-it-all tone even though he’d said the same thing to Kurokocchi not too long ago.

“So when do we get to meet him?” Risa asked.

“Never,” Ryōta said because the last thing he needed was to have his sisters make fun of him in front of Senpai. 

The copycat was convinced Senpai thought Ryōta was cool and he didn’t want to ruin the illusion by having his sisters teasing him.

“Aww, come on,” Risa said. “Don’t be like that. We’d love to meet him. Mom said he was very handsome.”

“And polite,” added the oldest. “By the way little brother, your nephew’s birthday is coming up. You should bring your boyfriend and his kids.”

### 

Yukio hesitated, “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” he said.

“Why not?” Ryōta was honestly bewildered. It seemed like a no-brainer to the blond. Kise wasn’t used to being turned down. It was dreadful. He wanted to go back to getting his way.

“I’ve already booked a hotel room, so you’ve got a place to stay. And I can get you an airline ticket.” It was one of his many job perks. "You won't have to spend a yen."

Senpai looked like he was struggling to say something else. “Two weeks is an _awful_ long time to take off from work, especially when we’ve got that resort project,” he wavered. “And I’ve got the kids that weekend --”

"But," Ryōta interrupted. "You always swap weekends when it's convenient for her."

Ryōta didn't need to elaborate who "her" was, there was only one "her" in their relationship and even though Ryōta had never met her, she had a dreadful amount of say in his life. And sometimes dating someone with a past, really sucked.

"C'mon. Just ask her to --"

And then Kasamatsu got annoyed with Ryōta. “I can’t give you a definite answer, alright? It’s not like I can decide these things on my own. I’ve got to talk things over with Hana first. See if she'll take the boys.” 

"Oh." Hearing that made Ryōta pout.

Kasamatsu reached for the man-child in his life, pulled him into an embrace. “I’ll talk to her, okay?” 

Ryōta buried his face in Yukio’s armpit, channeling an ostrich burying its head in the sand. 

He didn’t like the idea of Yukio talking to her, but he knew it was a fact of life. He knew if he wanted to continue seeing Senpai (and he very much did), she would indirectly be a part of Ryōta's life too. That was the way things would be at least until Hiro-chan was in college and probably longer than that.

Yukio petted the top of Kise's head. “I’ll see if she’s willing to switch weekends with me.” With his other hand, he tightened his embrace. “Two weeks is still too long, but I can fly in for the weekend of the wedding and maybe stay a couple of days with you after.”

He planted a kiss on the crown of Ryōta’s head and then placed his thumb under Ryōta’s chin to guide him up out of his hiding spot, imploring the man to look at him.

“You okay?” he asked looking down at the frankly breathtaking man in his arms.

Kise smiled up at him tentatively. “Fine, Senpai,” he said.

Now that they had found each other again, Ryōta had every intention of keeping this spiky-haired, temperamental man in his life.   

“I know you're being sweet, by offering to foot the bill,” Yukio-san said, “but it's important to me to not let you buy me things. If I go to Kuroko and Kagami's wedding, I'm splitting some of the travel costs with you. At least let me pay my share of the room.”

###

Kasamatsu Yukio came straight to Kise Ryōta’s apartment following an inspection he'd done of a construction site one Saturday afternoon. His firm had been awarded the contract to draw up the plans for the newest resort in the Matsumoto family of hotel chains.

And now that the groundbreaking had already occurred Yukio needed to go down to Minato at regularly scheduled intervals to ensure that the project was going in accordance with the architectural plans he’d created. 

Kasamatsu Yukio came to Kise Ryōta’s apartment with his briefcase and tubes of blueprints, which was to be expected and by now a thoroughly common sight. He also came to Ryōta’s apartment with a yellow hard hat tucked under his arm, which was unexpected and thoroughly fascinating, at least where his boyfriend was concerned. 

Kise had been to his boyfriend’s office and so he’d seen the hard hat there. He knew that if you flipped it over it had the name “Kasamatsu” written in permanent marker on the suspension system inside it. He’d even seen black and white newspaper clippings of Yukio-san wearing it at various groundbreaking ceremonies.

But now the yellow hard hat was here in his home and he couldn’t keep his eyes off of it even as Senpai set it down, along with his briefcase and blueprints, in the small hall closet in the genkan. 

"Senpai," Ryōta said with a predatory gleam in his eyes. "You look like a construction worker carrying that around."

"Oh yeah. It's a safety thing," Senpai explained seemingly oblivious to what his boyfriend was getting at. "Everyone has to wear one at the job site, otherwise we get fined.

Yukio-san made his way to his boyfriend’s bedroom and Ryōta picked up the hard hat from where it had been set down and tailed after Senpai like a lost puppy. 

Kasamatsu was in the walk-in-closet undressing. He removed his suit jacket and placed it on a wooden hanger he’d taken from the small sliver of closet space Ryōta had made for him in the master bedroom.

Senpai took off his tie next and draped it around the neck of the hanger. Kasamatsu unbuttoned his white oxford shirt, gave it a quick sniff, then balled it up and threw it in the laundry hamper.   

All he had left were his socks, his dark gray suit pants, his belt and his ribbed tank top undershirt.

But when he went to pull off the undershirt, Ryōta spoke up.

"Senpai," Ryōta said moseying over to where Yukio-san was standing. "Leave it on. It makes you look like a construction worker."

"Knock it off idiot. I told you I was only there to check on the project. I didn't 'construct' anything."

“Yes, but we could _pretend_ ,” the blond said. His voice as well as his gate were slinky and seductive as he approached his somewhat interested boyfriend.

“You’re all sweaty, Senpai.” Ryōta remarked. “From toiling away with a jackhammer in the _hot_ sun.”

Never mind that it was a chilly and mostly overcast autumn afternoon and the only ‘hard labor’ Yukio had done was unroll a set of blueprints.

“And this _appeals_ to you?” Kasamatsu asked incredulously.

“Yes,” the blond said emphatically, giving his boyfriend his most impish grin as he placed the hard hat on Senpai’s head.

Ryōta nodded approvingly, casting an appreciative glance at the man in front of him and feeling very pleased with what he saw.  

Kise went for Senpai’s belt buckle first. Then he unbuttoned his trousers and let gravity take care of the rest.

He tugged on Yukio’s arm so the man would step out of the puddle of dark gray wool crepe fabric that now lay at his feet.

Kasamatsu was in his hard hat, his ribbed white tank top, his tighty whities and his dark, over-the-calf trouser socks that were reminiscent of the leg supporters Senpai used to wear on the court in high school.

Ryōta wrapped his large hands around the man’s narrow waist and pulled Yukio towards him. 

Kise hummed happily, pleased with his handy work. He placed a supporting hand behind Senpai’s head as he leaned down and kissed the shorter man.

He kept his other hand on Yukio’s waist, holding him in place as he began to grind up against Senpai.

Kissing Senpai while he wore a helmet post a bit of an obstacle, but it was not one that couldn’t easily be surmounted and Ryōta was all about  _surmounting_ at the moment.

“You have entirely too many clothes on,” an already breathless Yukio-san panted once his boyfriend let him up for air. “Here,” he said. “Let me help you with that.”

They did not make it out of the closet as the rug burn on Senpai’s back from the carpet fibers could attest to. 

They’d used Senpai’s undershirt to clean up, but neither one of them showed any real intention of getting up just yet.  

They were both still basking in the afterglow and in the warmth of each other’s company.

"You’d better take that off, Ryōta," Yukio warned. His arm was casually draped over Ryōta’s bare thigh.

"Why?" the blond asked gazing down at his boyfriend with a playful smirk on his lips.

Kasamatsu was on his back and Ryōta on his side facing Yukio-san on the floor in the rectangular clearing surrounded mostly by built in mahogany shelves and racks of Ryōta’s designer clothes on three sides.  

"You know why," Yukio said, moving closer.

"Yeah, I do," Ryōta admitted, smiling smugly and casting a quick peek at his very naked boyfriend. "But I still wanna hear you _say_ it."

Kasamatsu gently tugged on the hard hat that Ryōta was now wearing (and nothing else).

The darn thing had rolled off of Yukio’s head during sex and neither one of them paid any attention to it while Ryōta was plowing into his boyfriend. But afterward, Ryōta had picked it up and placed it on his own head like a crown.

"Because you’re pretty," Kasamatsu said.

"Mmm," Ryōta hummed sounding pleased as punch over his boyfriend's words.

"You're _so_ pretty," Yukio said and Ryōta moved in closer so that his boyfriend could easily kiss him. "You're going to give me a fetish for hard hats."

Ryōta giggled. "You're hard right now," he pointed out, proud that his boyfriend had already recovered and was inclined to have another go.

"I know. And whose fault is that?" Yukio drawled, all slow and seductive. 

“Mine?” Ryōta asked with feigned ignorance.

Kasamatsu nodded. "Now take responsibility for it."

Ryōta did take responsibility. 

Now that Ryōta had topped Senpai, they would take turns with each other. Ryōta handed Senpai the bottle of lubricant so he could open the blond up.

But to his horror, Senpai began to flag. And _oh no_ , Ryōta was much too young to deal with something like this. "Uh, Senpai," he said, unsure of how to broach the delicate subject. 

But Yukio put a reassuring hand on Ryōta's thigh, clearly seeing the panicked expression on his boyfriend's handsome face. "It's not what you think," he said in between pained breaths. "It’s my leg. I've got a cramp." Kasamatsu grimaced. "Just give me a minute, it'll pass." 

And Ryōta began to relax. "Oh good," he said, feeling relieved that at least it wasn't that _other_ thing.

When he saw the perplexed look on Yukio's face, he quickly added. "I don't mean 'good' you're in pain. I mean 'good' that it's not . . . _eh --_ "

He wasn't sure how to end that statement so he let the tortured sentence die midway on his lips.

Kasamatsu quickly regained his, um, _composure_ once the cramp subsided.

“Come here, you idiot," he said. "I’ve got a proven track record. I don’t think you have to worry about that,” he groused as he pulled the blond over to straddle him.

Kasamatsu laid on his back on the floor of the closet and waited for his boyfriend to be firmly seated on top of him before he began to thrust up into Ryōta. 

All that jostling dislodged the hard hat off Ryōta’s pretty blond head and gravity took care of the rest. 

“Ah Fuuuuck!” Yukio cried out in pain. “My nose!” His hand immediately went to his face to cup the gush of blood that came pouring out.

And then only the hat was hard.

“Wait here, Senpai,” Ryōta said in a panic as he quickly dismounted. “I’ll call Midorimacchi!”

###

Hiro-chan was pushing his toy car along the seat of the wooden bleacher making vroom, vroom noises. When he encountered the obstacle of a high mountain range (Ryōta’s blue suede brogues), he pretended to shift the gears of his off road-vehicle and guided the car over Ryōta’s left foot.

The little boy grinned up at Uncle Ryōta who returned the smile and affectionately ruffled Hiro-chan’s now thankfully critter-free hair.

It was part of Ryōta’s carefully planned (by Senpai) and slow introduction into the boys’ lives. The blond had met Senpai at a middle school gymnasium in Yokohama. They were at one of Haji-chan’s basketball games. Ryōta would be going out for ice cream with Haji-chan’s team (win or lose), but after that he was going to go home and let Senpai have his time with his boys. 

They had talked things over with Haji and he'd cautiously agreed to let Ryōta attend today's game, but there were certain conditions that _absolutely_ had to be met. There would be _no_ PDAs of any kind and if any of Haji-chan’s friends asked, Ryōta was Dad’s friend from high school.

The blond could live with that. He couldn’t know for certain because the small boy was not outwardly affectionate the way his little brother was, but it seemed like Haji-chan was warming up to Ryōta.

Much to Ryōta’s unrealistic disappointment, he and the boys were not going to bond overnight. The only reason Hiro-chan seemed okay with Ryōta’s presence was because he didn't quite understand what a “boyfriend” was. 

As for Haji, he didn't bore any ill-will towards Ryōta in particular. It was just that he had had the starry-eyed pipe dream that his parents would get back together. It had been a far-fetched wish to put it mildly, but in his heart of hearts Kasamatsu Hajime had held on to that flicker of hope that his life would go back to the way it had been before Dad had moved out of their house.

And so watching his mother get remarried and his father start dating someone had been a bitter pill for the young boy to swallow. But he was a resilient little man like his father and he was making the best of a difficult and sometimes confusing situation.

_You stopped loving Mommy. Are you going to stop loving me too?_

_What?! No. Never. You and your brother mean the world to me. Absolutely not. Under no circumstances would I ever stop loving the two of you._

Hajime was getting used to the fact that he and his brother had two families now, one with Mom and the other with Dad.

Haji-chan's teammates had been polite enough not to mention the bandage covering the bridge of Senpai’s nose and thankfully didn’t ask how Haji-chan’s dad managed to get a cut on such an unlikely area. Ryōta was just grateful Senpai's cute nose wasn’t broken from having had that run in with the hard hat.     

The blond had to admit that watching Haji’s basketball games were enjoyable. Hajime’s playing style was so much like his father’s it made Ryōta grin just looking at him dribbling down the court and passing the ball to his teammates. 

It made Ryōta nostalgic for the days when he shared a court with Kasamatsu at Kaijō. He was looking forward to playing that three-on-one game with Senpai and the boys one of these days when they took Ghidorah to the park.

He was also looking forward to the start of next season's recreational league so that he and Senpai could play basketball together again. 

This time, he resolved that not only would they not finish last again, but they were going to beat out all those other teams and win the cup. He just had to make sure enough of their friends showed up to play so they wouldn't forfeit any games this coming season.

Ryōta felt a surge of determination. He turned to his boyfriend to share his thoughts and saw that Senpai was engrossed in the game unfolding in front of him. When Hajime sunk a three-pointer early on in the fourth quarter, Kasamatsu swelled with pride.

Senpai smiled that crinkled-eye proud papa smile Ryōta loved so much.

###

Kasamatsu-senpai was naked and in Ryōta’s bed. The edge of Ryōta’s baby blue seigaiha pattern sheets were pooled around his trim waist. Yukio was working on his laptop and the screen in front of him was reflected on his reading glasses.

Ryōta could hardly keep his hands to himself. It was so _unfair_ , Ryōta pouted. Senpai looked so devastatingly handsome in his reading glasses, but he only ever wore them for boring, alone time activities like work or reading books.

This wasn't the Senpai that had fueled Ryōta’s feverish high school fantasies. This was Kasamatsu Yukio. An architect and a father.

This was the Senpai that had a still-healing scab on the bridge of his nose from when the hard hat fell on him. This Senpai had needed surgery on his bottom. He had creases in the corners of his eyes when he smiled and there was a sprinkling of salt in his pepper-colored hair. He was a bit more unkempt down there than then-sixteen-year-old Ryōta's overactive, hormone-soaked imagination might have guessed. This Senpai had even missed a spot on his chin this morning when he was shaving.

But he was sexy. Oh. So. Very. Sexy. Sexier than anything Ryōta's teenage mind could have possibly conjured up when he was alone at night in his bedroom. Because he was real and he was solid and so very warm when he held Ryōta against him.

He was everything the Senpai that had only ever lived in Ryōta’s imagination never was. This Senpai was imperfect and he was beautiful and infinitely more captivating because of it. 

This was the man that made Ryōta's heart flutter. The man who was an amazing boyfriend and an even more amazing father. This was the man Ryōta couldn't keep his hands off of.

It was gradual the way their lives had started to meld together. It had started with Ryōta casually suggesting that Senpai leave a suit and a few of his dress shirts in a small corner of Ryōta's massive walk-in-closet.

Even though he’d lost a bit of closet space, turning the kitchen into a third walk-in-closet now seemed like a hare-brained idea to Ryōta, given how sexy Senpai looked in an apron and how utterly gaga Ryōta was over a man who knew how to cook.

Along with that smidgen of closet space, Ryōta freed up a drawer for Senpai in his built-in dresser so Yukio-san could keep a few of his undershirts, socks, and underwear.

Ryōta thought it was a shame that they weren’t the same size, he'd gladly share his clothes with Senpai. He'd gladly share so much more than his clothes with this man.

Soon thereafter, Senpai's copy of _Architectural Monthly_ had been stuffed into Ryōta's mailbox.

 _Your place is closer to work and I spend time here already_ , an embarrassed Yukio-san had explained when Ryōta placed the magazine on the coffee table in front of Senpai with a teasing smile.  

This was the way he wanted things to be, Ryōta thought, with Senpai in his bed every night, wrapped in his sheets. Slowly but surely their lives were converging. More and more of Senpai's work clothes had started migrating to Ryota's apartment.

And while Senpai's apartment was much too small to fit much else, Ryōta now kept a clandestine toothbrush there. 

Senpai would still go home on the weekends when he had the boys. And on weekends when the boys were with their mother, Ryōta would sometimes go home to his boyfriend's apartment.

Yokohama was growing on Ryōta again after so many years of living in Shibuya.

Kise was thinking about their living arrangement and thinking that perhaps he should get bunk beds for the boys in his spare bedroom.

“Senpai --" Ryōta began, fully intent on telling the man so, but Yukio interrupted him.

“For heaven’s sake,” he said, closing the laptop and setting it on the night table along with his reading glasses. “You had your hand on my junk not thirty minutes ago. I think it’s safe to say, you can call me something other than, 'Senpai.'"

"I can?" Ryōta beamed as if Christmas and Valentine's Day and his birthday had all arrived at once.

Kasamatsu saw the elated puppy expression on his boyfriend's face. “Damn Brat,” he playfully chided. “Don’t get cocky,” he said fisting Ryōta's pretty blond locks and pulling the taller man in for a kiss.

“Kasamatsu-su,” Ryōta said, eagerly testing out the name on his tongue for the first time just as soon as their kiss ended. 

Yukio grimaced, apparently already regretting his decision.

Ryōta grinned at the unbearably adorable pained expression on his boyfriend's face.

“Yukiocchi,” Ryōta giggled.

Kasamatsu groaned. “Don’t get cute, idiot,” he said poking the blond on his firm, bare chest. "Just call me Yukio, Ryōta.”

Kise gave a little nod of agreement, “Okay Ryō --, I mean Yukio,” he said.

“Idiot,” Yukio called him, smiling that crinkle-eyed smile of his.

And then he leaned in to kiss Ryōta on the lips. "You're the idiot, but I'm the fool." Yukio unexpectedly admitted. "the fool in love with you."

Ryōta smiled happily. "A fool and his idiot," he sleepily proclaimed.

It had been gradual the way their lives had melded together. Then suddenly, it had sort of all fallen into place. _All of it_.

Ryōta snuggled up closely in his boyfriend's arms. Once the blond was settled in, Kasamatsu kissed the top of Ryōta's coconut-scented head. "Sweet dreams beautiful," he said.

"Goodnight, Yukio." 

* * *

**AN1:** The title of Fools was inspired by this [ song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGJTaP6anOU). But I heard a [ more modern take](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLpDiIVX0Wo) on it recently in of all things a gum commercial. It is, fittingly enough, the story of high school sweethearts falling in love. Fools was my first foray into the jumble of emotions that is KiKasa. I hope I did this pairing justice. I wanted to tell their story in a way that was funny and honest and _definitely_ not perfect. I hope this fic reflects how beautiful second chances at a first love can be.  

 **AN2:** OMG, I wrote more costume porn, someone please take this laptop away from me. If anyone is wondering what's next on my writing plate. I _still_ have my [MidoTaka prompts](http://jmetmisc.tumblr.com/prompts-and-fills) from tumblr that I'm _trying_ to finish. Ten more left. Woot! They will be posted in chronological order in [ All You Need Is Love](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4664187/chapters/10693472). So if that is something you’d be interested in reading, please subscribe to that fic. I also want to write that MidoTaka college AU I’ve been talking about since at least the summer. It will be called Don't Let Me Down (Kise will be making cameos in that fic, but it's pre-Kasa so there will be no Senpai).

 **AN3:** I don't know if I'll be writing more KiKasa in the future. Fools was _supposed_ to be a humorous little sidestory to [ Dreamers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4405481/chapters/10004801) and instead it turned into a 60k+ stand alone fic. Ha! ha! I guess it’s true what they say about the best laid plans. Anyway, I wouldn't rule it out just yet. There is still a lot of Kise and Kasa’s story that hasn't been told yet in this ‘verse. If I do end up writing it, Ryōta will learn to be a fantabulous (and devastatingly handsome) step-dad to the boys, Haji-chan will discover girls (and to his dismay learn he's about as smooth with them as his old man was), Hiro-chan will learn that biology doesn't mean a damn thing, and there will be a new addition to the Kasa clan (hint: there’s a pink little hard hat in Senpai and Ryōta’s future).

I'm not sure why, but Fools garnered more comments from you than any fic I've written in this ‘verse. I think you all just love this pairing and so do I. Reading your thoughts (and gushing over mutual ships in comment threads) was the best thing about writing this fic. I looked forward to reading your feedback at the end of every chapter.

A special thanks to [ yza](http://archiveofourown.org/users/yza/pseuds/yza) who wrote [ flower/s](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5792227) which was inspired by the lingerie scene in this fic. I love it to bits!!! Please go read it and leave yza a comment.

Thank you for reading my fic, it’s been fun! If you enjoyed Fools, please consider leaving a comment. 

(^ _ ^)/  

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [flower/s](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5792227) by [yza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yza/pseuds/yza)




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